It starts with an adrenaline rush of Timbaland bass tricks, then falters with a mid-section that lacks depth and direction, before petering out. In that, it's almost exactly like the 43-year-old's last solo record, 2009's The Blueprint 3. What Magna Carta is, is a solid, dependable, predictable and often super-serious Jay-Z record that does everything by the book. Holy Grail's sonically spectacular first four tracks are, there's one major problem the album can't shake, and it's something every hip-hop album released in what's left of 2013 will struggle with: It's no Yeezus. It gets better: Picasso Baby's rolling waves of bass sound like a Pink Panther murder mystery, Tom Ford's off-kilter beats and name-checking could be a superior lost track from Jay-Z and Kanye West's Watch the Throne collaboration, and F***withmeyouknowigotit's growling menace is as subtle as a fist in the face.īut as good as Magna Carta. With Justin Timberlake's flawless falsetto, Timbaland's beats swooping in like a jumbo jet and a breakdown that includes the chorus from Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit, Holy Grail gets Jay-Z's 12th album off to a stunning start.
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