by Dan LeRoy
Digital Bullet is RZA's second album under his latest alias, as Bobby Digital. It's no shock that he brought Bobby back; the first Digital outing, Bobby Digital in Stereo, was a high mark in the Wu Tang Clan producer's prolific career. What is a bit surprising is the sound of this effort, which frequently stretches all the way back to the mystical murk of the Clan's first album, Enter the Wu-Tang. The muffled beats and disorienting, late-night soundscapes of that hip-hop classic have been imitated countless times since its 1993 release, but nobody does 'em like the Rizza, and uneasy tracks like &Must Be Bobby& and &Domestic Violence Pt. 2& seem to bring him full circle -- as does the presence of several Clan members, including the jailed ODB. Even the nods to the mainstream -- &Glocko Pop& and the swaying single &La Rhumba& -- seem, like RZA's best work, to have arrived from a slightly different dimension. Meanwhile, there is a storyline to this installment of the Digital story, but as on In Stereo, listeners have to use some imagination to fill it out; RZA's rhymes are often as evocative and opaque as the kung-fu flicks he loves. But as always, he creates tracks that are more about atmosphere than message -- and when he's on his game, as he is here, it's hard to argue with that approach.