Crooked announces the exit from the group, the others greet him, but a few days later, in the same month, Royce declares that the group is disbanded. It's April 2018. The sudden end leaves a bad taste in the mouth of at least half of the members, Joell Ortiz and Kxng Crooked. In the intentions of these guys, Rise and Fall aims to narrate the events that led to the end of a normal rap group — but the boys will swear it was the best rap group ever — who managed to have great success in the span of three years and who performed far below what could have been its potential, having three talented rappers in its paddock.
There isn't much to tell, because the reasons behind the group's demise are public, and date back to the recording period of the never released group's third LP, "Glass House": Slaughterhouse comes from two studio albums that have been praised by critics and got a favorable response from the public, in particular the second, supervised by the rap superstar Eminem — which reconnects relations with Royce, with whom he had not spoken for years, after the first LP of the same name — and released with Shady Records. Strike while the iron is hot, but the group begins to procrastinate: in short, the guys don't agree on what the best rhythms and the best songs on the album are, they don't go back to record new tracks and decide to devote themselves to their solo careers. When budden, at the end of his career, in one of his hundreds of completely empty outings, decides to diss Eminem, he burns the future of the group and effectively puts an end to it.
After the sudden separation of the rap supergroup, Joell Ortiz and KXNG Crooked have tried to reunite it on multiple occasions over the years, without any success. Then comes this second effort of the two former members of the group, two years after their first collaborative EP. Guests are singers Blakk Soul, Sly Piper and Traxx Sanders, production is provided by Heatmakerz, DJ Silk, Hesami, Jim Gittum, Fong-Sai-U and DJ Pain 1. The boys boom bap rhythms sound honest and there's some above-average rhythm, while Ortiz and Crook swap nostalgic bars about the glorious times of the Slaughterhouse with an energetic and quick style.
The duo's frustration, anger and disappointment at how things went in the mid-2010s are too strong to spare several rants against joe budden throughout the album and, if these are even partially understandable and justifiable as they consider his figure as one of the causes of the closure of the group, those at Royce's are a bit more cryptic to understand, also because there was no real hatred against the Detroit artist. The album is a concept that narrates the rise and fall of their group, however, it runs out of intentions very soon, ending up pouring all its content into the first track, "Vacancy", chosen as the first single and which boasts one of the best designed beats, the work of the Heatmakerz. "Backstage" is another solid cut, thanks more to a fresh production made by Hesami than to the lyricism offered by the performers. The rest of the record is predictable, there's not much imagination or excessive inspiration in the construction of the lyrics, the hook search is forced, and the production sounds pretty good, if you only listen to it once, with repeated passages it may quickly begin to tire you.
Ortiz & Crooked still know how to rap, their flows are smooth and this is one of the positive sides of the record, too bad there are no arguments to carry the album forward consistently, forcing the two to envy the guy on the couch interviewing guests (referring to budden) and the one who gets flowers for a Grammy-nominated album (referring to Royce), as if the two who escaped from the group in a non-controversial way are to blame for committing themselves or for being too successful in their respective fields. The cover, with the group's logo burning roasted, is still one of the best of the season. If you are / have been a Slaughterhouse fan you may also find it interesting from some point of view, too bad it has no replay value. 5/10.
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