Clipse Finally Unleashes Its Caged 'Fury'

Straight outta cold storage comes the most cunning hip-hop album of 2006, courtesy of two brothers who've spent the past 1,559 days seething in record-label-merger limbo.

Not since the days of Prince scrawling "slave" on his face has an artist beefed with his label as publicly as Clipse, two masterly rappers who first made pop waves with their 2002 breakthrough, "Lord Willin'."

Since then, a messy label merger has kept the Virginia Beach duo smoldering on the sidelines, where Terrence "Pusha T" Thornton and Gene "Malice" Thornton haven't flinched at airing their dirty laundry with Jive Records, both in interviews and on underground mix tapes.

Now, after numerous delays, fans can finally feast on their superb new album, "Hell Hath No Fury," which, despite its fiery title, shivers and bristles with paranoia. It's an almost flawless effort -- lean and focused, with Pusha and Malice looking over their shoulders after every boast.

Like many of their peers, they rap of lucrative cocaine deals and the subsequent spoils, but in serpentine rhymes, riddled with pangs of suspicion and regret. On "Momma I'm So Sorry," Pusha outlines his modus operandi in a distinctive voice that comes straight from the sinuses. "I philosophize about Glocks and keys," he spits. "Call me young black Socrates." Later he confides, "My only accomplice: my conscience," as an accordion wheezes over a ticking high-hat, almost sympathetically.

Production maestros the Neptunes are responsible for all the wheezing and ticking on "Fury," and it's some of the duo's best work. Sure, the Neptunes found fame penning tunes for cutie-pies Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake, but here, Chad Hugo and Pharrell Williams hone their left-field strengths, stacking inventive keyboard arrangements over a limitless vocabulary of snaps, crackles and pops.

The album's first single, "Mr. Me Too," showcases just that, with a tambourine shimmying its way through a dense vapor of synthesizers. Malice raps: "We cloud hoppers / Tailored suits like we mobsters / Break down keys into dimes and sell 'em like Gobstoppers."

"Trill" comes marching out of that same cosmic bog, with Malice parlaying his sidelong glances into a Billy Ray Cyrus reference: "Why does wealth make them hate me? / And make chicks' hearts so achy-breaky?" The song sounds like a German techno record melting off the turntable.

The album's predominantly icy mien begins to melt only toward the end. "Chinese New Year" serves as the twitchiest, angriest track, with Clipse likening their gunplay to holiday fireworks. Pusha transforms "Sesame Street" into a much shadier street, threatening, "Give up the cash before I turn you Cookie Monster blue."

They temper the hostility with "Nightmares," the breezy, curveball closer that belies its title. Before neo-soul crooner Bilal glides through the chorus, Malice contemplates his own demise. "So even when the mumblers talk / I still walk the most humblest walk," he concedes. "And one day, they may even catch up with me, man / But till then I'm Leonardo / Catch me if you can."

It might be a while before anyone catches up with these guys.

DOWNLOAD THESE: "Momma I'm So Sorry," "Mr. Me Too," "Trill"