Music Review: Ghost face killah

There's always something unsettling when an artist releases two albums in the same year. Inevitably, the second lies in the shadow of the first, and brings up many speculative questions: is this album just B-sides? Why not release a double album? What makes this one different?

Ghostface Killah's More Fish is no exception. Objectively, the album sounds great: Ghost is at his best, again-tight production from likes of MF Doom and Madlib, spot-on rhymes and delivery.

The first single, "Good," is excellent (ironically), and songs like "Blue Armor" and "Block Rock" are destined to become classics.

However, because More Fish was released just months after Fishscale-widely considered one of the best records of 2006 in any genre (see recess' Top Albums of the Year on page 4)-and because conceptually and creatively (not to mention their names), the two albums are very similar, More Fish will never be a truly memorable album on the level of Supreme Clientele.

It's a strong effort, no doubt. Some might even call it great.

But it will never be what it could have been. A far better decision would have been for Ghost to, for example, take the best tracks from More Fish and put them in Fishscale, replacing the weak tracks of that album. With that arrangement, there is no denying that Fishscale would have easily been compared with the all-time greats.