The first "Watson And Holmes" was released the following summer and I liked it plenty but, I still wasn't sure if the duo was permanent or would work together again. So in early 2017 I was intrigued and excited to hear rumblings of a second installment. The record finally hit stores on June 9th of that year.
The album opens with "A Glass Of Port [Intro]" where we hear a skit that I would guess samples either a show or cartoon relating to other Sherlock Holmes adaptations. It's a good precursor to the skits and interludes that blend the track-listing together. Most of the time I flip past it to get into the rapping parts but the added mythos goes a long way.
The music kicks in with "Lucifer's Sickle". Right off the bat we're hooked with this wailing vocal sample atop rattling drums. Stu Bangas finally unleashes guitar riffs and bass lines for the beat drop and Blacastan goes right on in with his punchlines. I love these opening of the second verse "I'm at your door, black hoodie and sickle, black hellhounds'll sick you/Sign your self over your death is official." I hope I'm hearing that right. Blac moves through his rhymes pretty briskly on here but you can still catch what he's tryna getting across.
The song "Summa Cum Laude" featuring Apathy is the third track and the lead single for the album. It's one of my favourites with eerie synths throughout. The whole song has me imagining cobblestones streets and Tommy guns. Like some mafioso drive by shit. The drums breathe really nice and the eerie leads fade and reenter, emphasizing Blacastans' lines like "Me afraid of a mic is like Spider-Man with arachnophobia/Or a dope fiend afraid to shoot the opium up." Blac kills the first two verses but, I think Apathy truly went hammer on this beat. Shouts out to Apathy for his range of references in the first couple of lines too "We've been Christ-like since the days of Zelda and Exite Bike/First Edition Nike Flights, Atari's and Lite Brights." Like OK go off. All three of these guys have such a track record together, how could it not be fire?
"Rap Killin'" fades in with these glittery keys and strings before a hook made from chops of Nas and Biggie comes in. I dig the double snare hits as well as the hi hats that swing in to pick up the pace in each of Blacs verses. Blac also has some great schemes in here to like "I'm Merlin, twirling in the sky like a whirlwind/In Germany conjuring a storm over Berlin." The first act of The Uncanny shows both Blac and Stu hitting us with as many bangers as they can and I'm all for it.
Definitely the hardest beat in this portion of the album to me is "Commando". It's almost sounds like Stu is flipping sleigh bells to match the baseline and drums. This beat had me scowling off the first bar and Blac responds with some of the most disrespectful and vulgar lines on the whole album. We got lines about turning out people wives in the verse and the hook has him snatching your kids out of daycare. Blac is coming for you on this one and theres nothing you can do.
The instrumentation gets a little more mellow on the next collaborative cut, "Blac-O-Teric". I love the synths that twist their way across the heavy kick drums. Blacastan and Esoteric take the bpm of this beat as an opportunity to really spit as many multi-syllabic rhymes as possible. Blac really kicks this off with a tongue twister line "Now that you hear me spit it, notice that its lava every time you get it/Rhyming as crimes committed, knowing that you never did it." I like Eso on here as we see him bringing trusted comic references on lines like "By the way that Stu had flipped a banger after banger/My anger I can't contain, my lane is Bruce Banner." This beat isn't as hard or obnoxious as others on the album so sometimes I'm skipping it. The syllable schemes from Blac and Eso to me are really what sell this song.
The narrative of Watson and Holmes 2 is also linked by skits and outros you can find scattered between songs. The second of those skits is "State Your Name". I'm not sure if these skits are all being pulled from the same movie or shows but it's really going a long way towards the cohesion of the project.
One of my favourite tracks on the album is "Zone Out". I love the funky bass strings and cymbals. Its definitely one of the more stripped back beat that Stu provides here and Blacastan knows exactly what to do with it. This is like the perfect track to break up some weed or cook to. One of the best hooks on the record is here and Blac is slicing shit on the verses too. I love the way he calls out to different part of the world as the beat fades too. I can see this song being just a super organic process to make. Chill but lyrical too. Stu also laces up an amazing instrumental bridge too that takes us in the song after this.
"War Crimes" is a fucking jam as well. I like the synth notes that lead into the song and Tragedy Khadafi gets right down to it with bars like, "Opiate lines inject in your mind and overdose ya/Heavenly bent, life's to real to remain sober." Blacastan spits one of my favourite choruses on the album here and I love his line of popping your top like a champagne cork. This beat from Stu is pretty open as well. The drums have lots of air so the tempo feels slower than it is despite all the minute sounds clicking away behind our main note. Shits knocking though. We also have another solid bridge to the next song.
My favourite track overall is without question "Sin City". Stu flips these wild guitar leads until the beat kicks in. Those intricate guitars leads get more drawn out after the drums drop and Blacastan matches his punchlines and flow switch-ups with the alternating snares and cymbals are layered on the drums with every other bar. Blacastan blends luxury with grime in lines like, "Summer of Sam, catchin' bodies, covering land/Catch a flight at top speed in a Euro sedan." Globe trotting and reigning terror on rappers. Letting the guitar breathe during the hook was a good call too. Spin this one back for sure.
Blac and Stu continue to make song transitions so seamless and exciting as Sin City ends in time for another skit to introduce some of the ingredients of our next beat. "Delete" features brass sections and this super wide decaying synth over one of my favourite snares on the record. The cuts from 7L continue through the outro on "Sin City" to become the hook for this song. the I love the vocabulary of Blacastans verse as he boasts, "I'm a savage magician, A time traveling wizard/A violent technician with a javelins precision". Bill has lots of cool internal rhymes for his entry here too. Every collaborative cut on here has had its own vibe so far demonstrating the versatility of both Blacastan and Stu with this one being one of the more eclectic and quirky songs.
The concept of Watson & Holmes really comes alive in "Murder Mystery II". The song has Blac investigating a murder case, gathering witnesses and reviewing evidence over these really somber synth notes and string sections from Stu. Blacastan doesn't flex his rhymes too much but he sticks to the storytelling really well. Part of me wishes the second verse had some more lines to it because this is really the only song that matches storytelling with the album title.
"Remington" is another no holds barred banger. Though I do find the synth leads a little garish and noisy but similar to "Commando" in the first act this track just sees Blac slicing shit with bars like, "Hip-hop reviews from [writers] with no clue/Give a fuck about your views get slapped out your shoes." The hook here is just stupid hard as well as Blac is likens his crew to gorillas in the jungle. This is that song that you play on your last set on the bench press. The transition to the next song is seamless yet again as Stu lets the song wind down gently with brass instruments.
Another strong song on the tail end of this record is "Catchin' Bodies". I dig the arena sized guitar chops and the keys. I like the lines where Blac names all his cohorts in AOTP just in case listeners forgot the cloth he's cut from. A lot of that pharaoh lyrical content can be found here too in like such as, "God body, equivalent to the number seven/black pope with no belief in holy books and heaven." I like the jab he takes at Flex because from the perspective of an underground/independent fan I always see these platforms not going to some rappers who really deserve that exposure. The hook here is great too.
The final instrumental bridge is "Forgot To Say" is a great piece of music too. Stu digs up this wild piano sample and knows just what drums to lay underneath the keys. I like that the vocal bit has lots of room to breathe too. Creative decisions like this to let the music shine really go a long way.
The record ends with a sort of epilogue song "Circle Of Fire". This song is just the icing on the cake. These drums from Stu are mean and metallic with blaring electric guitar sections that carry us through verses from Blacastan and Nutso. Blac leaves us a few more gems just to be safe and Nutso is going just as hard too. This beat is right up there for me with some of the earlier slaps like "Commando" or "Sin City" as some of my favourite Stu Bangas beats I've heard yet.
When it comes to the Army Of The Pharaohs collective and the albums you can find from the individual members, Blacastan and Stu Bangas have made something really essential here. Blacastan shows his versatility and his aptitude for writing choruses making so many of these songs memorable. The features old and new have some classic entries as I never felt like any of them felt washed to out of place. The instrumentals are something else too samples from Stu are lush, layered and dusty all at the same time. Stu Bangas brings drums sets that are as tough as you'd want them to be pretty much every time.
Pros: As far as the Pharaohs family goes, Blacastan really pulls ahead with these Watson and Holmes records. Stu Bangas is lending some of his best beats of the decade to this album and Blacastan creates a challenge for every feature they recruit. Each song blends seamlessly into the next with skits and samples and the record slows down just when it needs to.
Cons: Aside from the skits and Murder Mystery II, Blacastan and Stu aren't really writing too many stories that pertain to detective work or mysteries. Almost every song on here is pretty loose in concept. We get a few glimpses on the record into Blacastan as a person and his storytelling but, its rare. If I had any expectations for the third record it would be to hear Blacastan hone in on something topical more often because he's got the bars down pat already.
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