Never leave Prodigy for dead. People tried that in the mid 2000s, and Return of the Mac came out to blindside them: Alchemist shined behind the boards, providing a timelessly grimy soul-break soundtrack, while the Mobb Deep vet refocused and returned to his malevolent street-noir wheelhouse after years of questionable crossover bids. What was originally intended as a promo vehicle for Prodigy's 2008 LP H.N.I.C. Part 2-- a strong album in its own right-- became one of the MC's defining late-career albums, and set a new precedent for him to live up to in his solo work. Now here we go again: skeptics figured P needed to find some way to regain his footing after his prison bid, his social media beef-not-beef with Havoc, and the rusty compromise of his first post-incarceration albums. And whether Prodigy agreed with them or not, his return to a teamup with Alchemist actually came across like it really meant something, a definitive attempt at reminding everyone just what got him to the point where it matters if he lets people down.
The funny thing about Albert Einstein is that the six-year stretch between Prodigy/Alchemist collaborations means very different things for both parties' art. Prodigy's proven to be best when he finds some new ways to describe his old habits, an endless reserve of sharp threats and cool menace fueling his dark-punchline verses. But Alchemist's switched up his game significantly since the 70s-jukebox R&B/funk break approach he deployed with brutal efficiency on Return of the Mac: he's been on his psych-prog thing for a while now, leaning effectively on pitched-up, complex guitar noodling and lo-fi loops where Hammonds and Moogs hit as hard as kick drums. Hearing one of the giants of NYC hardcore hip-hop spill classic knuckle-to-the-eyesocket rhymes over the same dopamine-jolting hashbar beats that made Russian Roulette, Covert Coup and Gangrene albums so blown-out and grainy? Why the hell not?
In that sense, Albert Einstein is so casually visceral and immediately gettable that it feels like a recent high point for both of them. Lyrically, Prodigy's delivery is enough to make the constant pile-on of relentless violence blur into something more lifelike and experience-driven than empty threats. He's a cinematographer, letting the scene speak for itself, and even when he gets cute with a punchline-- “I peddle dope longer than Lance Armstrong” (“Curb Ya Dog”) or “Can't come around no more, your mouth runnin'/ Sprints through New York like that marathon Puff did” (“Bear Meat”)-- it all ties in with the bigger picture of a callous, calculating scrapper with a grim wise-ass streak. “Bible Paper”'s first verse invokes Breaking Bad body-removal tactics and reduces an adversary to a “gooey mess” and “special sauce.” And the insomnia-fueled "Confessions” relays an insomnia-fueled hit on a hotboxing couple with the kind of detail that haunts (“I saw his radio lights through the rear tint”; “Now there's weed smoke pouring out the bullet hole glass”). The appearance of similar-minded guest MCs pays off, too; he stands up well paired with excellent verses by Roc Marciano (“Death Sentence”) and Action Bronson (“The One”), but in ways that feel more complementary than competitive, like old friends and respected peers shooting the shit.
As strongly as his best lyrics can stand on their own, and as good as he's capable of sounding on even the most familiar breaks, Prodigy's vision really gets pulled into vivid life when the beats are especially tense. And while Alchemist's productions have their own foreboding inner life, an MC who can credibly double-up that haunted-house mood makes that production just that much filthier. Practically nothing on the album feels strained, and even less seems compromised. When subject matter and production click the most graphically-- the weathered resilience of the grown-man badass on the daggers-of-sleet piano trudge “Stay Dope”; a remorseless Class of 95 reunion where Havoc and Raekwon cut through with molasses-bassline dread and nail-biting disco/funk chase-sequence breaks on “R.I.P.”; metal-caliber threats of Old Testament bodily harm set to the tune of downpitched, shapeshifting Eastern Bloc space rock on “Bible Paper”-- there's a real tactile feeling to it. It's like if the uniquely weathered, evocatively musty sensations of long-shelved, resin-stained gatefold LPs and dusty, cracked-spine pulp crime paperbacks were fused and synthesized into music.
