Pitchfork

When the Wu-Tang Clan first touched down nearly 15 years ago, they were the world's most dangerous geeks. Warped by PCP, touched by the microphone muses, and informed by the hyperbolic mysticism of kung-fu and a pro-black strain of Islam known as 5 Percent, the Staten Island crew blended menace and mythology-- the sort of hip-hop Joseph Campbell, Marcus Garvey, and Freeway Rick could all appreciate. But now that the allusions of novelty and youth have faded, and the once-feared Wu have been overshadowed by a long line of successors and pretenders, all that's left is the memories, the solo albums, and the ever-growing myth.

Though it's far from a great album, Afro Samurai fits in nicely with Wu folklore. The anime series it soundtracks resembles the animated segments in Kill Bill (which, of course, RZA also scored), while its main character, dubbed Afro, is everything the Wu always wanted to be: stark and bloody, yet also strangely honorable.

Initially, it seems like RZA's up for the challenge. On "Just a Lil Dude", the canned musical metaphor of a fluttering harp is smashed another RZA's signature minor-key tension. The tight acoustic guitar figure and smoky soul hook on "Cameo Afro" provide perfect background fodder for GZA's rhymes. "Certified Samurai"'s chunky drums and stuttering rhythms make a striking counterpoint for Talib Kweli's high-pitched, pointed voice. And "Take Sword, Pt. I" is haughty Asian lowbrow-- in other words: vintage RZA.

The album's final five tracks find RZA again returning to his Bobby Digital persona. Unfortunately, the tracks are largely tossed off, closer in spirit to Bobby's blah sophomore album than his inventive debut. The oddly tuned key line of "Glorious Day" is refreshingly strange, but RZA lazily opens the track with line recycled from his guest turn on GZA's "Fam Members Only".

Another problem: The music feels too incidental and monotonous for the soundtrack to stand alone. The Shaft-sharking bass of "Afro's Fight Father" is slight and, by now, awfully trite, while the warmed-over trip-hop of "Oh" telegraphs a character's introspection with obvious emotional metaphors, lacking the momentum to ever fully get off the ground. Granted, this is a score, and its primary purpose is to set a mood and stay out of the way, but on record, it's rarely evocative or engaging.

RZA could have stood to have taken a cue from Madlib (or even the first batch of Wu-Tang albums) and attempted to meld the elements into a pastiche. There is, after all, a central narrative and enough parallel musical strains for this to work. Either way, the Abbot's brilliance, apparent here only in flashes, may be enough to sustain long-time fans holding out hope for the anticipated Wu-Tang resurrection, but otherwise, the soundtrack's hit or miss.