Bone Thugs-N-Harmony reviewed
Bone Thugs-N-Harmony
Strength And Loyalty
(Interscope)
Five years and some member subtractions later, the Bone Thugs-N-Harmony comeback goes easy on its title theme.
With Flesh-N-Bone in the pokey for a few more years and being unable to cope any longer with Bizzy Bone, Wish, Layzie, and Krayzie Bone use Strength And Loyalty to first boast of their resilience and then fade. There’s novelty in shaking hands with a former adversary, Chicago rapper Twista, but imagination stops there. The beats are capably spliced together — the heavy sampling of Fleetwood Mac’s “The Chain” is an unexpected twist on “Wind Blow” — and the trio’s harmonies and rapid-fire flows are everywhere, but it all lacks the presence of their former mates. Mariah Carey’s multi-layered vocals on “Lil Love” show more how she has assimilated the Bone Thugs sound but has little of the spark a duet like this would have had in ’95. Elsewhere, Akon shows up on two separate songs to show where sing-rap has gone, giving the ruminative gangsta single “I Tried” a weary bent, and is the only one of the four vocalists to break through the track’s slick sheen. After time away Strength gives a needed boost to the follies of previous group and solo albums, but there’s a difference between back on track and full speed ahead.
— Steve Forstneger
