Killah Priest – The Psychic World of Walter Reed
Proverbs Records: 2013

It says quite a bit about Killah Priest that he has managed to maintain any kind of stature at all despite being a part of that most notoriously uniform and indistinguishable hip-hop stable; that of auxiliary members, affiliates and hangers-on of the Wu-Tang.

As the core of the Clan began to lose its rock-hard stability and show cracks over the years, myriad workmanlike rappers with name generator inspiring monikers proliferated into the wilderness, but Killah Priest managed to weather the harsh terrain better than the majority of his relegated peers. He has even managed to rebuild ties that once seemed to be entirely severed, judging by The Psychic World of Walter Reed’s Raekwon, Ghostface and Inspectah Deck’s guest verses and the couple of production credits bequeathed by RZA and GZA.

This isn’t to say that Priest is ever going to be taking the hip-hop world by storm; his tenth full-length is being released on his own Proverbs Records imprint, and it’s hardly a marquee release, but at least a couple of people are interested, and the release has been reported on, which is testament to the unique flavour that he has managed to colour his material with since those first couple of Gravediggaz features and his solo track on GZA’s Liquid Swords.

The Psychic World of Walter Reed takes that flavor as far as it could reasonably be taken, which is both its greatest strength and one of its weaknesses. Priest’s lyrical person has always been a little portentous, but here he goes all out, mixing the typical street tales of “lame cops who rush cocaine spots” with his trademark Christian spirituality and recurring cosmic, astrological themes. The albums sheer size also lends to the sense of grandiosity; after a number of delays, it arrives here as a behemoth, a double album containing over 40 tracks and breaching the two-hour mark in terms of running time.

Taken as a whole, it’s unwieldy and heavy handed, but in smaller doses the uniqueness of the mix is pretty refreshing. Priest can definitely rap, and he’s a smart guy who can criss-cross from politics to history to thuggin’ without blinking, and mostly without sounding like he’s overstretching himself. Inevitably over a record as long as this, though, he slips up, making it clear that Walter Reed didn’t really need to be anywhere near as gargantuan as it is. Whether it’s inexplicably reverting to a plodding, basic flow and doing a large disservice to one of the few RZA cuts present on “Fire Stone” or just generally dropping more than a few clunking, cringe inducing or out of place lines, (“I don’t do yoga but I can stretch the imagination”), Priest understandably can’t quite carry so much weight all by himself. Overall, though, he thankfully manages to keep himself in check.

The beats that Priest choose to spit over, meanwhile, are perhaps surprisingly about as consistent in quality as Priest’s bars, straddling an appropriate line between relatively traditional New York grime and more ethereal, melodic fare that meshes well with his more out there lyrical darts. Out of a large cast of producers, it’s Jordan River Banks of Godz Wrath who impresses the most, contributing a couple of powerful, traditional yet vaguely futuristic loops for Priest to play with, particularly the early standout “Shadow Landz”.

Again inevitably, over the double disc marathon the music begins to buckle too, and anything that doesn’t strive to aim north of standard begins to get lost in the ether. There is enough good material here, though, to ensure that if your interest has already been piqued, you will find something to enjoy. Provided you can put up with Killah Priest’s relentless, almost dour seriousness, you may well find The Psychic World of Walter Reed an occasionally intriguing trip.

3 out of 5