Czarface - First Weapon Drawn (A Narrated Adventure) (2017)
Don't think for a second that you're gonna hear bars on bars on bars, because this release, aside from the occasional spoken word narration is entirely instrumental, so I guess in a way, unless Esoteric or Inspectah Deck had anything to do with production, this is, by all means, a 7L solo album. It's pretty unique in the way that it was originally put out on a vinyl record on Record Store Day 2017 with a comic book that they created, with this essentially serving as the soundtrack for the comic. Now, what makes that especially interesting is that like with all other Record Store Day releases, it was released in pretty limited quantities, and you (as far as I know at this current point in time) cannot find the comic online, for purchase or for whatever you dirty fucking pirates wish to do. This is great because it means that in an attempt to stay true to their intentions of wanting to release something unique for RSD2017, it truly is limited and unique, but it sucks because they put out the album for streaming online, which means that part isn't limited, so really, all you're missing is a comic that you can't even purchase a .pdf of, so you're effectively missing out on a -huge- portion of their artistic vision because they don't want to make money.. Or something, I don't know, alright? I'm just saying it's a weird business decision: Make the PHYSICALS limited but let people be able to buy the digital versions of everything so you can make extra cash and the fans are happy. It's a fucking win-win.
So that aside, I don't really get what's going on in the storyline from the narration but that's perhaps because I'm a dumbass, so I won't rate that, which leaves me with an instrumental hip-hop album. Czarface's love for cheesy old superhero shit has never even been slightly a secret, and some of their instrumentals even sounded a bit like it before, but this is pure worship for 1960s superhero fuckery. If Czarface broke up because 7L wanted to focus on making music for intentionally cheesy superhero TV shows or movies, I wouldn't be able to blame him, because the dude fucking nails "this is the soundtrack to a comic book" really easily to the point where even people who aren't into that sound have to show props because you can tell the dude really has a huge passion for this specific craft. The problem with the music comes from the fact the entire time you listen to it, you can't shake the fact that something is missing, and that "something" is none other than Esoteric and Inspectah Deck rapping about vaporizing each other over it. This is possibly Czarface's most interesting album (to me) on an instrumental point and we don't even get to hear lyrical bars over it, and that's sad as shit to me, because when you hear this album, you get the feeling that those two MCs would be trying to annihilate each other over it. I personally wouldn't even mind if they just re-released this album with raps over the beats, because at least I'd finally get to hear them grace the instrumentals with tales of superhero shit. Regardless, this ain't the most satisfying thing ever, but this is some good shit.
7/10
