After the sprawling, heavily-weeded excess of The World Is Yours, Scarface wisely dialed it back, & in doing so ended up pendulum swinging for his followup. The Diary is almost stupidly singleminded: half an hour shorter than its predecessor, with no skits, only 3 interludes adding up to 3.5 minutes total, & only a single feature song. We don't even get J. Prince's usual spoken intro. What we do get as a result of this streamlined attitude is the most consistently hard-hitting production Face ever boasted, & the most effortless listen of his entire catalog to date.
Though I like to think of this album as the beginning of modern Scarface, his subject matter on this album is as simplified as the other elements. After the mood-setting instrumental intro, we get 4 songs in a row that consist mainly of pugnacious murder threats. The 5th song, "I Seen a Man Die," is also about murder but from another angle: the psychic toll that all this killing takes on the people who commit & are affected by it. With a relaxed yet chilling delivery, Face examines cycles of violence & the cold realities of death over a church organ-led instrumental punctuated by sinister reverbed vibraslap, like the everpresent danger of a rattlesnake lurking just off the narrow path.
The brilliant "I Seen a Man Die" turns out to be the fulcrum of the album, because in the back half the subject matter diversifies & we get Face's reliable sex rhymes ("One," "Goin' Down"), a sociological takedown of moral guardians who try to blame the world's problems on gangsta rap ("Hand of the Dead Body"), a wild-out freestyle ("The Diary"), &...well, everything that's on Face's mind ("Mind Playin' Tricks '94"). Our guides through all of this are the production team of N.O. Joe, Mike Dean, & Scarface himself, some combination of which produce every song on the album. Their constant presence gives the album sonic consistency: you know you're getting Dean's trademark thick bass (often played in a slap style & sometimes heavily wah-wah'ed as in "Goin' Down"), layered guitars & dry, funky drums. Every track is impeccable musically, but if I had to pick highlights they'd be the shivery strings of "Hand of the Dead Body," which accentuate the rock-solid flows of Scarface & Ice Cube; the audacious "99 Luftballoons" sample in "Goin' Down"; & "Mind Playin' Tricks '94" whose iconic original beat is updated without being disrespected--this is how you do a remake!
This isn't a perfect album by any means. When you're going for short & sweet, every track has to hit as hard as possible, & I'm not quite sure what purpose songs like "Jesse James" serve aside from being funky, elastic grooves. But the album is short, sharp, shocking, & it leaves you wanting more. Add that to some of the best conceptual songs Face ever graced us with ("I Seen a Man Die," "Hand of the Dead Body"), & even if it's not as lyrically profound on the whole as some of his other albums, this is Face firing on all cylinders & creating an absolute classic.
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