Method Man, The Meth Lab - Album review

Download: Bang Zoom; Two Minutes Of Your Time; Lifestyles

You’re in your mid-forties, and you’re still hanging around with guys called Cory Gunz, Masta Killa and Uncle Murda. What’s wrong with this? Apart from the spelling, that is?

Then again, calling your album The Meth Lab hardly testifies to a responsible attitude. Even so, it’s amusing to hear Method Man claiming “Wu-Tang is for the children, go get your child support on” in “Two Minutes Of Your Time”. Elsewhere, he and fellow clansmen Raekwon and Inspectah Deck come across like grumpy old men on “The Purple Tape”, admonishing newcomers who “ain’t struggled enough, maybe cuddled too much”.

It’s an ironic counterbalance to the sinister lope and slow-rolling menace of the typically inventive drug and gun metaphors of tracks like “50 Shots”, “Bang Zoom” and “The Meth Lab” itself, though the winning line is: “The nigga’s shoes look like liquorice jellybeans!”