Released September 5, 2006,
on Babygrande Records.
On one side stands Anthony Brown, a.k.a. War Cloud, a.k.a. The Holocaust, a Wu-Tang affiliate whose unusual distinction is that he hails from California rather than New York, and whose main claims to fame were his contributions to RZA’s solo project Bobby Digital and Killarmy’s second album, Dirty Weaponry – two of the Clan’s most underrated works. On the other are Kingston and Young God, two producers from the deepest reaches of the indie hip-hop underground, collaborators with the likes of Noah23, Ceschi Ramos and Jus Allah, who joined forces as the respected duo Blue Sky Black Death – having initially gone by the name Torso – following the double album A Heap Of Broken Images.
This joint album by the three men is a meeting of two worlds in the tradition of Wu-Tang Meets The Indie Culture, except that, unlike that project, it rises above the level of mere curiosity. The alliance is also far more natural than it might first appear. In truth, the underground scene has always owed a great deal to RZA and the Wu-Tang Clan, whose strange sounds and cinematic atmospheres it has often revered. They also share a pronounced taste for nerd culture and esotericism. That kinship is obvious in indie groups such as Jedi Mind Tricks, who, like several Clan members, have also had ties to Babygrande, the label that released this Holocaust album. It is on this common ground that he finds himself alongside Kingston and Young God.
The Holocaust, for his part, favors cryptic lyrics shot through with apocalyptic visions, biblical references – to Cain and Samson – or literary ones, such as Edgar Allan Poe, as well as allusions to pop culture, with science fiction and fantasy foremost among them. Here he paraphrases heavy-metal band Judas Priest; there he quotes an episode of The Twilight Zone. Elsewhere, in his grave, declamatory voice, he invokes Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris, Green Lantern and Wonder Woman, the novel I Am Legend or the ending of Predator, the manga Ghost In The Shell, and even the legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin.
The Holocaust delights in parading his learning – whether highbrow, religious or popular – in lengthy tirades such as the seemingly endless closing section of “Crash.” With him, on “God Be With You,” a good old-fashioned ego trip turns into an elaborate scavenger hunt filled with obscure parallels to Greek mythology, The Lord Of The Rings and The Wizard Of Oz. And, as further proof that we are never far from the intellectual wing of the underground, he delivers all this in immaculate English, without the slang that is standard currency in rap. Only a latent brutality, a violence simmering beneath the surface, serves as a reminder that the street is never far away.
For their part, Blue Sky Black Death’s two producers strongly evoke RZA. The influence of the Clan’s mastermind is unmistakable in the female vocals and off-kilter notes of the magnificent opener, “Plunder,” and later in the dissonance of the extraordinary “Monarchs.” Their music, however, is broader in scope. It is cinematic and ceremonial, giving trumpets, guitars, violins and other instruments plenty of room to breathe. These are fully orchestrated instrumentals that could easily dispense with rapping and stand on their own, as Kingston and Young God had already demonstrated on the instrumental half of A Heap Of Broken Images. That excessive grandiosity is often the formula’s main limitation, but it also fits perfectly with The Holocaust’s florid, convoluted tirades. Whatever worlds they may originally have come from, these three were bound to meet.
