Manchester's Bugzy Malone burst onto the season a few years ago with his smart, vivid, greazy lyrics defining his style. He had a hat-trick of successful mixtapes from 2015 to 2017 which I enjoyed, and his debut album "B Inspired" dropped in 2018. Despite being slightly disappointed by the first LP, I was still intrigued and had enough faith in his bars to check out his latest effort "The Ressurection"...
Just to give context to the album, and a big theme of the album, and very likely the reason for the title, back in Spring 2020, Bugzy Malone crashed whilst riding a motorbike into a car, and if you look at the images of the bike afterward, he fucked it up. He's lucky to be alive, hence the name of the album "The Resurrection".
I don't want to talk too much about the crash though, more about the music. He addresses the crash straight away himself in the title track, and also every now and then throughout the album, including the track "Don't Cry" which probably had the strongest hooks and was one of the catchiest records on the project. Everything that needs to be said about the crash has been said, by Bugzy himself, and others, hence why I don't really give a fuck about it. As long as everyone involved is alive and well which I believe they are then that is the main thing.
I'm not sure if it's because Bugzy survived a near-death experience or what, but I can't remember Bugzy ever sounding so "up-himself". The skit "The Masters" is ridiculous and a bit mad. I can't believe he heard it back and decided it was something that should be included on the album. It's crazy how obnoxious he sounds, and arrogant, and boring. The bit I'm on about is when he's talking about being "cut from the same cloth" of Vincent Van Goph and artists of similar caliber - but instead, Bugzy uses his words to "paint pictures" in the listener's mind. This would hold some weight if the following track "Van Gogh Effect" didn't contain the most basic rhyme scheme of all time, to tell a story that jumps all over the place anyway. The stories kind of cool and interesting, but it's completely contradicted by the simplicity of Bugzy's penmanship. Also, Bugzy says in the skit prior, that he says "picture this" to put "pictures" and imagery in the listener's head when they listen to his tunes, and that's exactly what he does in the following track. But, that's not good storytelling, that's just lazy, that's just a device that allows you to change rhyme scheme every 2 bars and move onto a different part of the story. It's nothing quotable that the listener will be able to remember or potentially relate to more just because you said "picture this", saying "picture this" does not even necessarily help the listener to imagine something. Let's think of some of the best storytelling tracks of all time.. Does "Dance With The Devil" do this? Art of Peer Pressure? Is this something Eminem tried on "Stan"? Nah. Bugzy can do the storytelling stuff, "MEN 1" for example. But this was a HUGE miss. I wouldn't have been bothered if the track didn't come after the God-awful skit before it. Rant done though.
I just criticized Bugzy's penmanship, and I was well within my rights to, but there was a nice bit of wordplay on the track "Salvador" when he says "Oh, I'm like a Playstation 5 and they're a Nintendo, you might see my personality switch, but I've never dropped a crumb, I'm no Kevin Wendell".
"Ride Out" was a well-put-together track, the hook was sick and the backing vocals at the end which mirrored the sort of "groaning" sound at the beginning were cool. In general, the flow and rhyme scheme was much sharper. The rhyme scheme being more complex is a reason I was more annoyed when he let the standard drop a bit in other areas of the album, like the "Van Gogh Effect" for example. The "pap pap" bit was fun in the second verse and a nice lyrical highlight.
"Bounce" is the following track on the LP. Once again, we see a British rapper switch up the vibe using a house instrumental and a fairly pleasant, unoffensive hook and verses (we saw AJ Tracey do the same thing on his album with the track "Dinner Guest"). I don't particularly have any complaints here, I like people spitting over these types of instrumentals. The beat though itself was extremely generic and was slightly slow for a house beat, maybe a bit of a quicker tempo would've benefited the verses, however, that wouldn't have been too accomodating with the hook. Like I said, I didn't really have too many complaints about this track, it's just a very safe song that is hard to make sound interesting.
Yeah, so with "The Ressurection" you definitely get a mixed bag of decent, good, bad, and dull. But then at the end, there is a sort of 3-track pack in itself. There is a skit called "The Immortals" which splits this up, and due to the guys speaking voice and the haunting sort of Woolf howlings in the background, I did enjoy this skit, and he explained what the "Immortals" were - the titles of the next 3 tracks; "Gods", "Angels" and "Skeletons". Then we get, by far the highlight of the album, and that is the track "Gods". The whistlings and howlings in the instrumental of the skit were carried over to this track, and every single bar landed on the beat so well. His voice was smacking that beat, especially at the start and definitely the hook. This was a hard-hitting track and to me would have been a great closing tune.
The tracks following "Angels" and "Skeletons" did their thing, they just had nowhere near the same impact. On "Angels" Bugzy was doing this thing though where he's rapping and he'll quickly move onto a different rhyme scheme very soon after moving on to the initial one - this works pretty well though (unlike "Van Gogh Effect) and he doesn't limit himself to any schemes, nor does he mind where and when on the beat the rhymes land, I liked that.
Just before I conclude the review, I HAVE to mention the beat on "Cold Nights in The 61". That was filthy and the grumbling bassline, with the drums popping and the ringing sound over the top just fit perfectly with Bugzy's content and voice.
Overall, this album is decent, but nothing amazing. There are a few hard tracks, but that skit "The Masters", really put me off it. I think if you include a skit like that, you need to be one of the firest lyricists on the planet. When there's other MC's who can spit creative flows and 6 syllable schemes on their worst days, it's hard for me to really connect with this album. This is coming from someone who has been to see him 3 times at different festivals, so I do fuck with his music, just not so much these last two albums.
Star Track - Gods
5.5/10
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