Review Summary: I'll put it this way, Strangeland sounds like a much better vacation destination than a place to live
Remember back in June when Tech came out with All 6’s and 7’s, where he was posing questions regarding his sanity and trying to recruit was the mission? If you remember correctly, he also was taken to “strangeland”, which is where his most recent album takes place. It’s a collaboration with his strange music posse, which have never really been up to par with his standard releases.
Welcome to Strangeland is actually a cut above the rest when it comes to the collabos, but after All 6’s and 7’s one can’t help but be a little disappointed. Not to say this album is on the level of
The Gates Mixed Plate because there are enough good tracks to make this a worthwhile release.
As per usual Tech N9ne style, the album is in sections based on mood and lyrical content. First come the songs that go with the Strangeland theme, then come the party bangers & sex anthems, and last are the sadder, more sentimental songs. The first section is easily the best, the flows are at their most creative and the rhymes are more complex and fun to listen to, plus the guest spots are being used to their best abilities, they add something to the song. Prozak’s verse on
My Favorite is among one of the best on the album, and Krizz Kaliko’s choruses are as infectious as ever. After a noticeable drop in quality during the All 6’s and 7’s B-sides- I mean the party/sex songs, you start to notice that the album is getting progressively more boring. Usually Tech & friends pull these off pretty well, but here it all feels like filler. The rhymes, beats, and hooks all seem to be really lazy (
Won’t You Come Dirty being the biggest offender) and even the 816 Boys are lackluster. Remember them from Sickology 101? I was expecting so much more with their song
Bang Out, but I guess anything after “OH AREOLA!” is bound to be a disappointment.
The third section, containing the album's more personal songs, is an improvement both musically and lyrically on the prior section, but not a large one.
Sad Circus is basically trying to be this album’s
So Lonely but failing, and there seems to be a bit of a length problem as well. Most of these are too long for their own good, like the aptly named
Overwhelming would probably be an album highlight if it weren’t so long. Every song in this section fails to do anything really interesting to get their point across, save for
Gods which is the best track on this half of the album by a mile. I feel like they wouldn’t be as boring if it weren’t for the guest spots, because obviously Tech is the best part of the album and the featured artists are pretty much just there because it wouldn’t be a collabos album without them. These songs were written for the sake of making the collabos album, not because they had good song ideas that they though a particular artist would help with. Take Brotha Lynch Hung in
Sad Circus, I get that he’s part of the strange music family and all but
he does nothing for the song at all. If anything he really brings it down a notch, this is a common occurrence throughout the album too. The songs have potential and the rappers have skill, but some things just don’t go together.
You’ll also notice this isn’t a very immediately memorable album, it takes a few listens to get used to it and appreciate what good the album does have, and it does have quite a bit. Considering Tech just released an album not six months before this, it's impressive how good they were able to make this. While he did use most of his best ideas on that album,
Welcome to Strangeland can have music of the same caliber, just not as much of it. I don’t want to say these collabos are filler albums, but they certainly seem like they’re made for the sake of being made. It’s a good thing Tech, and his crew to a lesser extent, are good enough at this to make them well enough to have some lasting value. There is a good deal of filler, yes, but what’s good on this album just about evens it out. With how much Tech does in this business with all these tours and albums he makes, it’s really impressive how this is as good as it is, even though given some time and more thought put into it, it could be better.
