My Gut Reaction: M-Eighty Presents Iron Cladzmen - The Golden Ages EP (December 22, 2009)

I've been sitting on this review for longer than I like, so first, apologies to the good folks at Drop Zone Records, who supplied me with The Golden Ages EP, a project from the Iron Cladzmen, a production duo made up of Legendary and DJ Karma Infinite.  Through their work with underground artists such as Canibus, Eastborn, and M-Eighty, they connected with multiple acts looking to make a name for themselves, and M-Eighty slapped his name on the top of the album cover because (a) he appears most often on The Golden Ages EP, and (b) he's affiliated with the Wu-Tang Clan (as one of those Wu B-teamers that will never earn a slot on an actual Wu album, group or solo).  As such, this write-up will appear whenever you click on the Wu-Tang link on the 'Search By Artist' sidebar.  (Side note: in December of 2009, M-Eighty aimed for a world record by freestyling for over nine hours straight.  I can't imagine that he said anything of substance: fuck, you try simply talking for nine hours straight and you'll find that you repeat a lot of shit.)

According to their MySpace page (which they should probably change to a Facebook any day now), the Iron Cladzmen banded together in 2007 as an antidote to all of the "watered down", "ridiculous" hip hop that continues to dominate the airwaves today, three years later.  It's an honorable excuse to join the overcrowded field that is our chosen genre, and any reason that a production team uses to create instrumentals that harken back to the mid-to-late 1990s is a good reason.

The Golden Ages EP features a lot of artists that you will likely have never heard of: the biggest star out of this motley crew is Germaine Williams, who, thankfully, chooses to not rhyme for nine hours straight, instead playing the role of de facto team leader alongside M-Eighty and ceding the floor (read: the mic) to anybody in the room who wanted to kick a rhyme.  Trading off on each track, Legendary and DJ Karma Infinite stack the deck by crafting some pretty interesting instrumentals, including some that Wu-Tang stans (the obvious target audience, to be honest) will piss themselves over. 

The Golden Ages EP will be available on iTunes within the month, from what I understand.  Drop Zone Records has been patient with my laziness, so I'll just jump straight to the review now.

1. RAZOR BARS (FEAT PRESTO, JAI PRESSURE, & PRYME PROLIFIK)
The Wu-Tang influence on Legendary's production is unmistakable, but it also succeeds in its own right: the beat consists of some pulsating palpitations set to a faint hint of melody. The three rappers who appear don't quite fit the bill, however: only Presto, who appears first, sounds fairly comfortable, while the other two come across as pale imitations of Wu-Tang Clan c-teamers.


2. REIGN SUPREME (FEAT M-EIGHTY, CANIBUS, J BAYNE, SON ONE, & DZK)
Karma Infinite provides a haunting, dramatic instrumental that is entertaining as hell. Don't get too excited by the guest list, though: Canibus only appears on the hook, one which (a) doesn't make any sense within the context of the song, which leads me to believe that he may have no idea that he actually contributed to this particular track, and (b) grows increasingly aggravating each time it is repeated. Luckily, with the exception of the project's host, everybody uses this beat as an audition reel to take on the role of saving hip hop, or at least make the genre more interesting. This wasn't bad.


3. THE GRIM (FEAT JOE FRAZIER)
The credits list only one artist appearing on “The Grim” but it seems to me that there are clearly two people on here. I would research this a bit more, but to be honest, the beat fails to muster up any interest in the track itself, and including sound bites from the likes of Nas establish a false sense of excellence that this song is unable to reach.


4. BUST BACK (FEAT M-EIGHTY & J BAYNE)
This pairing of J Bayne and M-Eighty over a banging instrumental is dope as hell...until the hook kicks in. And it's one of those choruses that doesn't know when to let up, so you could get up, use the restroom, wash your hands, go into the kitchen, make a sandwich, check your e-mail, fuck your girlfriend and her best friend, and wash your hands again: by the time you get back to the song, the hook is still rambling. It's so corny that I almost want to ask the producers to erase it from future pressings, as this is the kind of track where the rappers would sound even better if they didn't have to honor the constructs of traditional songwriting. The actual verses are pretty good, though.


5. GOLDEN AGES PART 1 (FEAT CANIBUS, PRYME, P THOUGHT, MARK DEEZ, & EASTBORN)
The vocals from Canibus sound distorted, as if he recorded them over the phone, or maybe the mp3 he sent over was of a low quality to begin with. Regardless, Germaine lyrically decimates his collaborators on here, none of which say anything that I can easily recall. The instrumental is almost incidental in its simplicity, but it helps Canibus get his point across with a verse that eschews his typical bullshit in favor of straight spitting.


6. UNGRATEFUL **** (FEAT M-EIGHTY)
I may be at a loss when it comes to what exactly is supposed to be censored out of the song title (the word “ungrateful” is never actually used within this song, unless I completely missed something).  M-Eighty sounds alright enough over a pretty hot beat, or at least as alright as a Wu-Tang Clan affiliate who brags more about his status as a record label executive than his skill as a rapper can possibly sound. The hook, predictably, sucks: once again, this would have worked better as one long verse.


7. CONSPIRA-C (FEAT CANIBUS, MARK DEEZ, & EASTBORN)
This song comes across as incomplete: Canibus comes through with a brief verse, but seems to be cut off midway through to make room for a chorus, one which consists of sound bites from other rap songs (which reference secret societies, in keeping with the title's implied theme) that are played at such a low volume that you have to strain to hear them. The verses are also much quieter than the music itself, as if, during the recording process, the instrumental were being played in fucking Sweden. This was kind of a mess.


8. ONE DAY AT A TIME (FEAT 60 SECOND ASSASSIN & CHOPP DEVIZE)
Karma's beat is simple but remarkably effective, allowing Chopp Devize two verses to rip shit accordingly. He comes across as the kind of rapper who could probably work alongside Kool Keith and help bring out the best in him, just as Motion Man does: perhaps Chopp could replace Motion whenever the latter needs to schedule a dental appointment. 60 Second Assassin, from Sunz Of Man, only barely appears on the hook, so he hardly registers on here at all, but still, this song is really good.


9. THINK TWICE (REMIX) (FEAT PRYME)
I'm not sure where the original version of this song is from, so I don't know how the remixed beat holds up to its predecessor. It isn't bad, though the loop that is utilized could use a few more flourishes to offset the repetitive tone. Lyrically, Pryme comes across as a far more polished Cappadonna, except that his lyrics make sense and are actually good.


10. GOLDEN AGES PART 2 (FEAT M-EIGHTY, CANIBUS, P THOUGHT, ORDEAL, & POETIC PROPHETIC)
Bonus points for using the word “espouse”. The beat on here is far more majestic than on the first in the series, but in an effort to balance the universe, Canibus reverts back to his ridiculous navel-gazing rhymes. As a result, everyone else easily bests him on the track. I'm sure he didn't see that coming.


11. RAZOR BARS (REMIX) (FEAT PRESTO, JAI PRESSURE, & PRYME PROLIFIK)
This is the same song as the first track on The Golden Ages EP, but Legendary somehow managed to craft an even more knocking beat than on the original. It even makes the two artists who aren't named Presto sound much more comfortable with the idea of rhyming as a primary source of income. Nice!


12. STAND UP (REMIX) (FEA PACE WON & MARK DEEZ)
Pace Won, late of The Outsidaz, is arguably the second biggest name on The Golden Ages EP. (Wu stans such as myself may feel that 60 Second Assassin fits that bill instead – hey, the guy fucking appeared on Raekwon's Only Built 4 Cuban Linx...! Then again, Pace Won made an appearance on The Score by the Fugees, one of the biggest rap albums in history, so there you go.) Fittingly enough, Pace uses this opportunity to rip shit up, and everyone else steps up to meet his demands. The beat is relaxing as hell, and the vocal sample woven throughout manages an ethereal feel. Not bad.


The following is listed as a bonus track on The Golden Ages EP.


13. FEELINGS GONE (FEAT M-EIGHTY, MICLORD, & CANIBUS)
It's kind of weird that a bonus track would require an introduction (as provided by Canibus), but he ushers in an instrumental that Wu-Tang stans will fall all over themselves for, and M-Eighty and MicLord both end the festivities on a high note.


THE LAST WORD: The Golden Ages EP is fairly interesting as a debut album. The Iron Cladzmen may surrounded themselves with too loose of a collective to form a general opinion of their talent, but the production work from Legendary and DJ Karma Infinite trounces the lyrical contributions, as well they should, considering that it's their project and all. Only a handful of the lyrical contributions stick, but when the rhymes work, they make for a formidable foe, and when they mesh with the beats, the music enables the violent actions of these swordsmen-in-training (and special guests Canibus, Pace Won, and 60 Second Assassin) with a banging soundtrack that comes across as the kind of beats that Wu-Tang Clan affiliates would (and maybe should) kill to spit over. The package doesn't work as a whole: some of the artists involved leave nary a mark on their tracks, making them harder to distinguish from one another, and the host of the party, M-Eighty, dominates much of the project when he probably should have crafted his contributions to be half-short and twice-strong. But maybe that's just me. Underground hip hop fans will find something to enjoy on The Golden Ages EP, so it's worth tracking down once it hits the Interweb.


-Max