Wu-Massacre is a collaboration studio album by American rappers and Wu-Tang Clan members Method Man, Ghostface Killah and Raekwon, under the group name Meth • Ghost • Rae, released March 30, 2010 on Def Jam Recordings.
[16] On February 22, 2010, Def Jam released a free mixtape called, Avenging Eagles by Allah Mathematics featuring various older Raekwon, Ghostface and Method Man material as a warm-up to Wu-Massacre.
[2] Entertainment Weekly's Simon Vozick-Levinson praised the rappers' lyricism and stated, "Method Man's acid sarcasm grounds Ghostface Killah's tightly wound exclamations, which in turn nicely balance Raekwon's flinty realism, and the trio's rhymes are well served throughout by big, soulful beats".
[4] Zach Cole of URB commended its energetic production and the rappers' lyrical deliveries, calling the album "a delight with not a wasted minute".
[10] USA Today's Steve Jones praised its production as a "rich, sonic tapestry", while writing that the rappers are "fierce and focused, firing steel-jacketed barbs with abandon on this wallop-packing collection".
's Del F. Cowie viewed its weaker tracks as those that do not feature all rappers and called the album "a patchy project that given some time and attentive conceptual execution could have been more than the sum of its parts".
[28] RapReviews writer Guido Stern called its production "uneven" and shared a similar sentiment, writing "Mostly it's just frustrating because the whole tape probably only has like six or seven verses from each of the headliners".
[29] Luke John Winkie of No Ripcord gave Wu-Massacre a 6/10 rating and called it "a fun, but mostly forgettable affair", but wrote "Rae, Ghost and Meth’s undeniable flow can make even the slightest record worth a spin".
[30] Pitchfork Media's Ian Cohen commented that "at the record's core are three MCs willing to spend a little critical capital and just have fun over pitchshifted soul beats".
Club's Nathan Rabin wrote that the album "thrives on the chemistry between Ghostface Killah’s excitable ranting, Raekwon’s smoothness, and Method Man’s combination of raspy humor and middle-aged grumpiness".
[3] Huw Jones of Slant Magazine perceived its sound as reminiscent of early Wu-Tang Clan albums, writing that it "celebrates the same stylistic elements that put Staten Island on the musical map in the '90s".
[33] Rolling Stone's Jon Dolan viewed it as a return to the rappers' "classic-Wu roots" and commended the album for its "imperious soul samples, waves of purple haze and pointillist pimp fantasies".
[8] Tiny Mix Tapes writer Chris Norton gave it a three-and-a-half out of five rating and wrote that it "functions more as a reminder that these soldiers are still deep in the trenches, leaning on the time-tested skills and sounds that put them at the top of the 90s and spurred their revival in this past decade".