Hi, everyone! Cancionera Here, the internet's busiest music nerd, and it's time for a review of this new album from Czarface, Czarface Meets Frankie Pulitzer.

Yes, this is a brand new record from East Coast hip-hop outfit Czarface, the comic book-inspired passion project of two rap veterans: original Wu-Tang Clan member Inspectah Deck and producer, rapper, as well as Mass native, Esoteric. And of course, we can't forget about producer 7L, who is also a member of the Czarface contingent and has been working with Esoteric for decades now.

Now, we don't need to go far back into the early work of INS and Eso to find something to praise in their catalog, of course, because over the years they have generated a fair amount of highlights and quality records just as simply as Czarface.

They've dropped album after album after album after album that have boasted Big Boom Bap and MF Doom vibes. Especially out of the gate, I would highly recommend their sophomore album, Every Hero Needs a Villain. And from there, it wasn't long before Czarface started actually collaborating for the length of an entire album with the likes of Ghostface Killa, as well as the metal-faced villain himself, MF Doom, on Czarface Meets Metal Face.

They then, down the road, went on to release more posthumous material, with Doom on Super What? But now, as fun and as standout as Czarface's villainous schtick was out of the gate. In recent years, I personally have felt like a lot of their material has gotten kind of predictable. But when it comes to records like Czarmageddon!, as well as Czartificial Intelligence, there was at least one interesting surprise held in those records, and that is a few features from one Frankie Pulitzer, who I guess is like actor Tom Hardy.

Well, not like actor Tom Hardy. Literally Tom Hardy!

His hip-hop alter ego, if you will. And I guess things got to a point where Mr. Hardy was no longer satisfied with just a mere cameo on a Czarface album, which is why the latest effort here is a whole entire record. Frankie is just in the thick of it on so many of these tracks, sometimes leading these songs off, or just being the center of attention.

And given Tom's history for really kind of giving himself to a role, he truly has the delivery down pat. Though I will say, he is a bit of a vocal chameleon, and his tone kind of depends on the track where he appears. Like with "Brothers Grimm", where he has this kind of general 90s Brooklyn guy voice going on.

Then on "All It Takes Is One Bad Day," he has this quieter, smoother approach that's very Roc Marciano. And with "That's Law", he's kind of shouting at the top of his lungs, almost like a Ghostface Killah, even saying at one point that his "word is bond". For sure, over the years, Tom Hardy has not made his love of hip-hop, his fandom for the genre secret, but I didn't know he was studying like that.

Going deeper on the song "Scrub", he's almost going with this crazy, Ol' Dirty Bastard style delivery where he's slurring all of his words. I don't quite know about this one. It maybe feels a bit too much like a bad impression.

And if all of this wasn't enough on "Grimm-Visaged War," in the second half of the track, he is literally doing the fucking Bane voice. Just straight-up Bane on this album. So yeah, obviously there is a lot of novelty to Mr. Hardy doing all this rapping, and obviously doing it as "Frankie" allows for writing and spitting that feels a bit more in character on some level.

And given the thematic angle of this project, Czarface knows this and fully leans into it. And really puts Hardy to the test, like, "You wanna rap? You're gonna rap on most of this album." And I do think Frankie, on this LP, he meets the moment. He raps better than you would guess somebody with a blockbuster actor background would. I mean, you could listen to the track "Frankie", which is two minutes straight of Hardy bardys, and yeah, it's not too bad.

I mean, maybe his style is a little old-school and not your cup of tea, but what is, for sure, is he is most definitely on the same comic book page as INS and Eso in terms of flow, content, artistic vision, and sense of humor. He locks in with these two on this record in such a way to where it feels like this is their fifth album together. They are that much of a well-oiled machine.

But just because Frankie spits better than you might expect doesn't mean his performances are necessarily mind-blowing. More often than not, I would say, what he brings to the table is kind of average, or at the very least, solid for a Czarface album. There are moments like the opener that I alluded to earlier where he's, handily, the weakest link, not quite sounding at ease over this very brisk tempo at the start of the album.

But he does have much stronger showings on the following two tracks with fun, off-kilter rhyme schemes like, "Confusing me with Hollywood stars, that's bizarre / This is Czarface Puller, Red Dead Redemption /Leaping out the trench and creeping out your henchmen."

But even if I were to go over all the lyrical highlights between Eso and Frankie and INS on this thing, the biggest blowouts easily go to the biggest guest stars on this record, be it either LP, who condenses these insane rhyme patterns into spaced-out bars on "Dragon Cannon". There's also Busta Rhymes, who brings a very simple but loud, powerful, and energetic performance on "Raw Forever".

And Method Man brings an absolutely unstoppable flow with crazy breath control on "Mad Technology." Beyond that, again, it's really Frankie and Eso and INS reinforcing each other so well, and all the great, groovy, colorful, sinister, textured production all over this record, too, that makes it work.

Like with "Gnawing at My Rhyme Scheme Like a Poisonous Rat," which really leans into the group's cartoonier sensibilities, because this one sounds kind of like a Danger Doom cut from start to finish. "Triple Helix" is packed with all these eerie synth leads, choppy, disorienting beats, and all sorts of sound effects and drops. It's overwhelming in the best way. Then, "Paul Bufano Type Beat" goes on a bit of a headier, almost jazzier kind of odyssey, with a more low-key vibe that pans out better than you might expect.

I'll also say between the instrumental cuts and Frankie's appearances and some of the features, this is definitely one of the choppier track lists we've heard from Czarface, too. It's a little all over the place, but in that regard, there's no one idea or sound on this thing that lasts for so long that it gets old or tired or boring.

This is definitely one of the more chaotic Czarface LPs, always throwing something different in your face. And even if Hardy isn't necessarily blowing me away lyrically a lot of the time, he does provide a little bit more, I guess, variety in the midst of this LP.

As I do feel like in some ways INS's and Eso's kind of like, collaborative chemistry has gotten a little predictable at this point. I think this album is just the shake-up that this project needed to put out something that was at least exciting at a baseline, with a good handful of bangers to boot, which is why I'm feeling about a light seven on this one.

Anthony Fantano, Czarface, forever.