The prospect of a new Wu-Tang album in 2007 doesn’t seem very exciting. Hip-Hop has changed so drastically over the years, and after a pair of disappointing, back-to-back releases (Iron Flag & The W), the Wu-Tang Clan have struggled to remain relevant in the constantly changing climate of hip-hop music. It’s safe to say that at this point, the only member of the Clan that makes albums still worth checking for is Ghostface Killah (and maybe Masta Killa). Ghost has carved his own niche and sound out with yearly Def Jam (and formerly Sony Music) releases, while the others have begun to fade into oblivion. It’s not to say that the other members have lost their talent, but let’s face it, none of these guys are still dropping classic albums like they did in the pre-Wu-Tang Forever era.

With The 8 Diagrams, the Wu-Tang Clan reunites once again, with an old friend protecting their necks, Steve Rifkind. Rifkind, who discovered them and signed them to Loud Records some fifteen years ago, has scooped them up again, signing them to a one-album deal on his SRC Records imprint. So while the Clan is back in good hands, they are finally allowed to return to their roots and make the music how they want it.

That’s the main difference between this, and virtually anything the crew has released in the last few years. RZA takes full reigns on production here, not even rationing out tracks to guys like 4th Disciple or Mathematics (the latter who only co-produces one track). The sound of The 8 Diagrams is traditional Wu-Tang – it’s unusual, unsettling, and perhaps the crew’s darkest album yet.

But the darkness of The 8 Diagrams is what makes it different – and good. We’ve heard these guys do the same thing over and over again, which is why we weren’t that excited about this release in the first place. We’ve also heard them attempt to make club playable songs, for better (“Chez Chez La Ghost”) or for worse (“Party and Bullshit”). But there is none of that here. Instead, this time these guys have faced reality. Ol’ Dirty is gone, their star is waning, and the music industry is falling apart. Shit is not all good, and they aren’t trying to fake like it is. Instead, they just do Wu.

The album opens with “Campfire”, which finds a master and student explaining the virtues on how to be a “good man”, using their best “American” accents (read: John Wayne).  Method Man opens the song, sounding very much at home on raw RZA production (the antithesis of Rockwilder & Erick Sermon), and Ghost and Cappa join in the fray, backed a Staten Island barbershop quartet, who provide a hum-drum bassline. The dark sounds of the album continue on “Get Them Out Ya Way Pa”, another bass-heavy backdrop, meshed with ominous drum patterns, as Meth, U-God, and Masta Killa trade verses, with hook shared by Ghost and Raekwon. Perhaps the album’s best moment is the melancholy, almost trip-hop styled, “Gun Will Go”, as Rae, Meth, and Masta Killa vividly describe the slums of Staten, as crooner Sunny Valentine pours his heart and soul into the hook.

It’s this style of what RZA once referred to as “blunted soul” that helps sew the record together, as he taps several other funk, soul, and doo-wop vocalists for other places on the record. The Manhattans’ Gerald Alston appears on “Stick Me For My Riches”, who sounds natural over a RZA beat, singing about the hardships of growing up in the ghetto, backed by Meth, RZA, GZA, and Deck, each whom share his sentiments.  George Clinton provides the hook for “Wolves”, one of album’s few more up-tempo tracks. While Clinton’s nonsensical contribution is strangely written and delivered, RZA, in his brilliance, makes it work, with spaghetti western samples, plus rhymes from Method Man, U-God, and Masta Killa.

This isn’t the only case of the group getting more abrasive with their approach, despite the album’s overall midnight tone. “Rushing Elephants” kicks things up a notch with RZA’s unique sample structure, while the grimy “Unpredictable” is a classically styled Wu-Tang beat down. “Starter” again taps Sunny Valentine for the hook, as the Clan members each wax poetically about their “number one gangster chick”, over another strange arrangement of samples from RZA, that slowly meshes itself together.

The album doesn’t really have much in the way of error. “Take It Back” is a decent filler track that uses the never-tired Bob James “Nautilus” sample, but we’ve heard them (and tons of other rappers) do this before on “Daytona 500”. The only real disappointment here is “The Heart Gently Weeps”. Sure, this is the easiest thing for the average person to grab onto – a remake of The Beatles “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”, but it has issues. It’s one thing for Erykah Badu to re-sing classic Fab Four vocals, but for Ghostface to come in and bastardize them with off-key lyrics like “that bitch is craazeeeyyy” totally disrespects the original source material. Furthermore, while the rest of the album does it’s best to present new sounds and styles to the listener, both “The Heart Gently Weeps” and “Take It Back” come off as rehashed. But we’ve heard worse over the years from the Wu, so we’re not complaining too much.

Expecting to hear the type of hype you might find on a Ghostface record, at first listen, The 8 Diagrams seems like a disappointment. RZA is trying new drum patterns, sampling strange records, and the sound is dank and murky. But it’s a slow burn. Furthermore, because of RZA’s off-kilter approach to creating these records, it at first seems like a jumbled mess without cohesion. But search your memory. That has been the case with every Wu-Tang record. It doesn’t seem so now, because now we all know the ups, down’s, ins, and outs, of those first five or six classic LP’s. But like those early records, after repeated listens to The 8 Diagrams, the album seeps into your consciousness. It slowly becomes cohesive, and all the pieces fall into their respective right places. You feel the freezing cold of Shaolin Island, you see the breath come from out their mouths as they spit lyrics through your headphones. Eventually you begin to remember what the sound of the Wu-Tang Clan truly is; formless, non-traditional. It’s songs like “Can It Be All So Simple”, GZA’s “Cold World” or Raekwon’s “Rainy Days”. It’s the pain, the hurt, the torture, the misery, and it’s captured here. – Pizzo