Compared to Enter the Wu-Tang, Tical’s production has briefer skits and fewer identifiable movie and soul samples that may be the result of a flood that laid waste to scores of completed tracks and beats in RZA’s basement. “Keep it moving, baby, we be moving,” chants Method Man, the drum major to RZA’s one-man band. “Release Yo’ Delf” flips Gloria Gaynor’s anthemic “I Will Survive” into a dubby marching drill. He tops the cavernous bass of “Sub Crazy” with a chilly, melodic howl and the disturbing sound of a bomb falling. Sandman” he degrades the Chordettes’ cheery ’50s pop standard of the same name into an eerie death wail and sprinkles it over a dulled breakbeat. RZA’s inkblot beats are just as fluid the sooty drum kits, corroded piano melodies, and spectral voice samples shroud the album in moody darkness. Method Man would later become revered for his smooth and assured voice-a pillar of orthodoxy in the midst of the Wu ruckus, and the legible counterpoint to Redman’s freehand word splatters-but here he’s as dynamic as he is suave.
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The opening lines of “Sub Crazy” are full of artful pauses and change-ups that string threats into a vignette: “What up, opp? Niggas is strapped, ready for war/On the ill block, things just ain’t peace no more/Fuck it, if you ain’t with me then forget me/Niggas tried to stick me/Retaliation, no hesitation, shifty/Creepin’ niggas in the dark, triggers with no heart/Ripping ass apart, I be swimming with the sharks now.” The rhymes are polysyllabic but unembellished, his voice instead stressing the shifts in cadence that stitch all the images together. He has a singular gift for stylizing transitions between words and bars, a skill that makes his rapping conversational and personable even when he’s taking heads. “Notice, that other niggas rap styles is bogus/Doo doo, compared to this versatile voodoo/Blazing, the stuff that ignites stimulation inside ya/’Cause I be that hell sure provider,” he raps, slyly emphasizing the first counts of each measure. On single “Release Yo’ Delf,” he sounds outright annoyed. But Method Man’s shit-talking often doubles as venting. Chef” epitomizes that mode, staging a friendly skirmish between Method Man and Raekwon. Most of the verses are functionally strings of battle raps, harking back to both the Staten Island cyphers where the Wu members cut their teeth and the internal competitions that would determine who ended up on the Clan’s songs.
Music about getting high often basks in the way weed dilates consciousness and stretches time, but Tical is more like a cigarette break on the clock, every puff underscoring the brevity of the comfort. He presents escape as active and adrenal, his thoughts racing as he chases relief in a rhyme or an inhale. In a 1994 ego trip profile, Method Man said the goal of the album was to “take niggas outta hell for a minute,” but the music never feels escapist in the traditional sense. “Is it real, son, is it really real, son?/Let me know it’s real son, if it’s really real,” he rattles off on the jittery hook. “Bring the Pain” is a flow clinic in which Method Man skillfully drifts in and out of meter over a purring sample of Jerry Butler’s soul gem “I’m Your Mechanical Man.” Though he sounds unbothered as he peels off boasts and references to Star Wars, Driving Miss Daisy, and Kris Kross, his fleet-footed rhymes are charged with unease. The music is claustrophobic and quicksilver, Method Man’s liquid delivery sliding around, across, and into RZA’s jigsaw beats. Named after methtical-Staten Island slang for weed-but also deeply shaped by angel dust, Tical molds the suave playfulness of “Method Man” into anxious evasion. Across these reclusive tracks, Method Man’s primary concerns are securing refuge and dispatching threats. Though he became the breakout star of the group, thanks in part to his frequent collaborations with non-Wu artists like Biggie and Spice 1, Tical is an interior record. It lives in the shadow of the canonized Wu solo albums that succeeded it, and relative to the cold precision of Liquid Swords, the wry unpredictability of Return to the 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version, and the dizzyingly stylish pulp of Only Built 4 Cuban Linx, it’s not as refined, eclectic, or cinematic. Meth stepped up with a debut informed by drug-altered states and the grim environments that make them desirable. It was supposed to be second in line, but Ol’ Dirty Bastard blew his $45,000 advance from Elektra on a hooptie and had an erratic recording schedule. Released a little over a year after Enter the Wu-Tang in the fall of 1994, Tical opened the fusillade of solo Wu-Tang albums that followed the clan’s rowdy debut.
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