Here Lil Squeaky delivers a solid vibe on what is called love and facing challenges as the lead single for his summer-oriented and feel-good album It's Just Different. His rapping still kicks in very well and his singing delivery isn't any less well done. The overall downsides include Beetlebat's vocal delivery still sounding thin and on top of his lungs (expressionless and translucent). Strangely enough, there's also similarities to the pop song "Rush Rush" by Paula Abdul, leading to ... read more

Literal pure talent absolutely no cap.

This album is weak compared to Herbie's other 1970s funk records at the time and arguably has less variety than the previous release "Sunlight". Almost the production is generic with the repetitive and minimalistic disco beats that make the songs sound incomplete and synthesizer work that's all too samey unlike Hancock's creative usage of his stunning keyboard collection. There are very little jazz elements and the majority of it is reduced to occasional Rhodes soloing other than the ... read more

Being an introduction to his vocoder era, here Herbie points his direction to the disco and funk market although makes a curve to keep a good amount of the jazz-funk elements. “I Thought it Was You” is a good example of this with heavy usage of Rhodes and scat vocal improvisations and sounds just as if the entire jazz band was told to perform a disco song, same goes for the funky title track. The sole lyrical jazz song “Come Running to Me” is the most impressive and all ... read more

Didn't expect a deluxe version to be released a month after the original. With that being said it feels more of a downgrade of the original. All bonus tracks sound rushed with mixes sounding seemingly over the top. "Put in the Work" and "Tsunade" sounds pretty empty other than other minimalistic rap songs and the idea to incorporate synthwave elements for the first is not executed well. "Diagnosis" is quite interesting with a sinister-like trap beat and vocoded ... read more

While the song itself sounds hard-hitting and intense for a prog and synthwave track with strong vocal delivery from Squeaky and Ivan Knight, it's a ripoff of this: https://soundcloud.com/praxior/praxi-synthwave

Beetlebat's own take in making music has always been executed from decent to mediocre. The fact the mixtape is purposely "dumb", it explains the eccentric nature of its music. Outside of that, it could have been improved.

Songs that are self-produced could've been much better although has some potential as the mixing is mediocre and songs like Flex On Em' could've been more hard hitting (although other elements I believe save the song) and Blackout's mastering sounds rushed. The ... read more

Unlike "Innocent", I honestly feel this is a downgrade of Beetlebat's music. The beat (produced by Lil Squeaky) sounds more acceptable of a children's song unlike his production effort in "Sun Goes Down". For Beetlebat's vocal delivery, the rapping itself seemingly doesn't fit and his singing feels embarrassing and grating and could've been improved with a little more autotune. Payden McKnight's feature here also appears to not fit either. Hopefully this year you will ... read more

Now this I'm impressed.

Massive improvement over Beetlebat's rapping although he kinda went offbeat. Overall, his best work in rap music.

Not too bad. A lot of the songs sound pretty good but at times the features just ruin them. While I do like Squeaky's genre branching and his professional-style production, the features just bring them down. I'm not sure if the beats were plagiarised (as he did that once for a Vol. 3 song) but the chord progression for "All That Jazz" sounds like it was just taken from the crappy Unison chord pack. Overall, the album sounds pretty nice, especially with Lil Squeaky's singing (although ... read more

I hope you guys enjoy it. This is my first ever album.

Even though this is considerably an improvement of Beetlebat material after his debut EP, this still does have its downsides. Here, Beetlebat's tries too hard to sing leading to vocal delivery that is quite grating and superfluous overdubs and unneeded falsettos and the vocal production could've improved it. Ben Riggle carries the song, but only so much. This still does not fail to grasp a "feel good" vibe thanks to the professional-sounding production from Lil Squeaky, though feels ... read more

(In perspective of an overly serious reviewer) the mission was not accomplished, and this album was just heavily rushed (it was made in 4-5 days) just to make Sammy the Fish's album "Speeder" fail, which it didn't. Each song sounds so bad and unlistenable and the flows are terrible and remixes of other song are hilariously terrible. This is clearly the most horribly aged album in Flex.

Most Favourite: None
Alright to me: None
Least Favourite: EVERYTHING

Listen here: https://open.spotify.com/album/5roRu545Y2USx1nb3OQ9sU

UPDATE 2021-12-22 (Score went from 80 to 70):
Previously I wrote a favourable review for xofilo's debut, but I realized it was updated a few months ago as some songs like "ice age" and "eyez" were removed, as well as features on some songs removed. I have mixed feelings on it as I feel it was pretty unnecessary but at the same time improved some songs. For example, "don't know what to do" originally featured CRZFawkz, which was later removed. While I didn't favour ... read more

This is really hard-hitting and aggressive for an electronic track, although it's too short.

The EP is not bad, but definitely, some improvements are necessary. The mixing on the album is not the best because songs like "Here We Go", "Patrol", and "Turn it Up" (although meant to be bad) have their vocals louder over the beat and the vocals on "Fresh" need de-essing. Beetlebat's flow is also pretty inconsistent in terms of quality because "Here We Go" has a decent flow while "Patrol" is the worst. Also "On the ... read more

Great tribute to the old music! A great way of making the old style of music of the late 70s to early 80s while keeping a little bit of the electronic elements as well as great uses of vocoders which turn out well in songs like "Get Lucky", "Lost Yourself to Dance", and "Beyond". RIP Daft Punk! You will be missed!

Favourites: ALL OF THEM

EDIT: Score went from 50 to 45.

I honestly do feel that there are some songs that don't use Flex's signature sound such as "The End of the Grand Era" and "Cheddar". Songs such as "Flex On, Flex Off" and "Skype" do it the right way. I feel that this album does have potential with some good and bad songs present.

Edit 1: Vol. 2 is better.
Edit 2: I also found out that "Covered in Blood" isn't original because it plagiarises this: ... read more