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The new album from Blade is a statement of intent. Self-produced and supplying all the lyrics himself, Blade spends the album talking about his attack and talking about his lyrical dexterity. It never manages to rise above that though. Starting with the title track “Storms are Brewing,” a casio synth and tight drums start up the album. Blade slips easily into his lyrical armoury, which consists of bigging himself up whilst creating atmospheric moods of paranoia and general “accept me for what I am even though I don’t care what you think”-ness. This works, for a time. The problem is that, apart from a song about pop idol and a song about September the 11th, this is all the lyrical content that seems on offer. I can understand why this would be enough for your typical hip-hop cat, but not for me. Blade’s voice is good and his rhythms are interesting, over some well programmed drums. However, once you scratch between the initial buzz of the sound, you feel like there’s not much there. This is a shame because Blade is such a veteran of the industry and of music. However, it feels like his ideas and his lyrics are spent and he doesn’t have much to say. This isn’t a diss. KRS-One is scraping the barrels at the moment. But I just feel there could have been more range to the lyrical content. For all Blade’s tracks and experiences he doesn’t seem to have evolved or grown older as time has gone on. He’s reciting lyrics from 5-10 years ago, it seems. On “This Is My Life”, over an acoustic guitar, Blade goes into a rap about people accepting him for who he is and how he’ll live the way he does. There is something a little too earnest about the song and it makes me think of angsty sixth poetry. It’s possibly the worst moment on the album.  Related Links:
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Blade Storms Are Brewing LP