Marciology is no return to form. Or more specifically, Roc Marci is in his best form right now, but he focuses more on writing poetry than songs. He almost solely produced the new CD, with some help from The Alchemist and Animoss, and as he said in his interviews he feels most comfortable on his own production. His beats suit his lyrics but work best only as soundstage for poetry, not as music per se.

Maybe that is why the second half of Marciology especially drags on. It’s not songs but huge chunks of poetry piled up, heavy on wordplay, with rhyming done nicely, almost perfectly. But not many of the tracks work as songs at all. Mediocre verses from guests only makes the material more sluggish.

This “too much poetry” effect is not new for Marciano. His last few CDs had the same downside: you praise his lyrical gift but don’t put on repeat this poetry over beats. Only the first three tracks —“Marciology,” “Goyard God,” and “Gold Crossbow” — have a clear musical feel to them. On “Gold Crossbow,” especially, Marciano makes an effort to make not just a poem over music but a rocking song. He rhymes there: “ain't gon' even hold you \ There's no room on the scrotum, you gotta keep it mobile \ That's a quotable.” And there are plenty of quotable lines all over the album, yet they don’t work if they are buried underneath the not very good songs.

On the cover of this CD under the title Marciology it says “a cult....” There is no denying that Marci created a cult following, giving life to dozens of copycats, mostly bad copies of himself with far less talent. But the irony is Marciology as a sort of tribute to his lasting legacy is too mediocre to create a cult now.