Paul Banks

The world (ourselves included) undoubtedly spent last week completely enraptured in Frank Ocean’s new music, but a whole lot more great albums dropped too, and it’s important not to forget them. Upon them was Anything But Words, the highly anticipated record from one of music’s most intriguing collaborations, Wu-Tang Clan‘s legendary ringleader RZA and Interpol‘s Paul Banks.

It’s been a long journey for the pair, who first worked together in 2011 and have been reportedly writing Anything But Words since 2013, but the day is finally here, and the album is now available to enjoy.

Anything But Words is dense and diverse, with guest vocalists including Florence Welch, Method Mad, Ghostface Killah and Kool Keith.

The collaboration of one of hip-hop’s most important emcees and an indie guitar legend is unusual indeed. When Howl & Echoes spoke to RZA about the collaboration, he talked about how they discovered the “energy and chemistry” between them. “There’s something about the work ethic that was displayed to me that really kind of triggered me feeling very comfortable with what me and Paul was doing,” he said. “Part of that is that you’re looking at two very capable men who are capable of holding down their own square but have decided to combine squares. I think there’s something very cool about that.” To see it from a metaphorical perspective, he said, “You look at it like those classic buddy movies… I’mma go to the 80s films and a movie called The Killer starring Chow Yun-Fat and Danny Lee together where one’s a cop and one’s a hitman but together they could take over the world. So it felt like that kind of energy.”

Stream the album below.