With 2002's wildly ambitious Lord Willin' Clipse looked likely to be the next big thing in the Crack-Rap world. A funny thing happened though on the way to making Malice and Pusha T. Rap moguls. The Sony/BMG merger that happened right after the success of Lord Willin' threw Clipse from their home on Arista over to Bubblegum Pop (and Hell on Earth in the form of) mega-label Jive Records which is home to everyone from Britney Spears to the Backstreet Boys.

Jive and Clipse clashed from the get-go (big shocker) so Jive sat on their sophomore release for over a year and Clipse had no other way to get their music out than on self-released mix-tapes for the last two years. Just recently, Clipse were finally dropped from Jive and released from their contract and the duo couldn't be happier.

Happier yes, but they are still mad as hell, as evidenced on the perfectly titled and long overdue Hell Hath No Fury. What didn't kill Malice and Pusha T. certainly made them stronger; they sound hungry and full of vigorous venom. Hell Hath kicks off with "We Got It For Cheap", a wink to the title of the mix-tapes that got them by over the last couple of lean years, then works its way into the grimy and just plain awesome "Mr. Me Too" which features Pharrell Williams. Pharrell needs to be mentioned here in this review as much as Clipse do, because his Neptunes are the ones that provided all the filthy dark beats though out all of Hell Hath and dare I say are some of the best produced beats this year.

"Wamp Wamp (What It Do)" featuring Slim Thug is probably the best mix of beats, rhymes and guest vocals heard in a long while. It's only at the tail end of this record that Hell Hath falls flat. "Chinese New Year" is a dumbed-down snooze that obviously was put together with radio play in mind and the slow-jam closer "Nightmares" featuring Bilal is simply terrible. But even those two missteps can't make me deny that Clipse's Hell Hath No Fury is one of the strongest and most welcome Rap albums of 2006.