still mostly fire, but the charm of the pinball formula wears off when the energy isn't there from mike or the features
this feels like the most cohesive and intentionally produced quickly, quickly album yet
two big thumbs up!
this album is lowkey like a mid sandwich but the bread is the best part
also if hotline bling hasn't aged well in 10 years you have to imagine how poorly an erykah badu cover album of hotline bling has aged in that time
i never realized how much this album, vocally, is a complete ripoff of ok computer until i relistened to both. the instrumental ideas here are still incredible on a lot of the tracks, though.
future carry as always, but I really like what thug is trying inflection-wise here. his tune sounds off and he's out of key for a lot of the song but it's still fun
songwriting, as in, writing a well-structured song--not just lyricism--has always been saba's strong suit. his ability to weave a hook with a verse with a bridge, all while staying bar-heavy over a creative instrumental is so valuable to what makes him the musician he is. and, while there is less consistency with this album than, say, care for me, his songwriting is truly at a high on this project, especially with songs like head.rap and crash. on the instrumental side, no id has proven ... read more
i honestly think this is the best album either of these artists has worked on. it feels like they were in tune with the instrumentals here. every song feels like it was written in the studio while the beat was being created, because the relentless punch in the form of these bob-and-weave flows, punch lines, and deliveries completely meshes with all of these (incredible) hip hop beats.
spoken vocals over post-rock instrumentals are a common occurrence in many albums you can find in the genre these days. they don't always hit, sometimes they're cool, sometimes they're out of place. but, on this album, I feel like I have finally heard them used to their full potential. the blazing, explosive instrumentals in the background while these eerie poems are spoken over them make for some of the most unsettling music I have heard. there are moments of release, of pause, ... read more
reaching near instrumental perfection on this album, but the vocals can get so strikingly theatrecore on some of these tracks that it makes them unbearable. still, the highs are so high, and the musicianship is so strong from start to finish.
one of the most insane reimaginations of a song ever. this is one of my favorite songs on trench, and the way it's completely reinvented here in such a creative and dynamic way is the perfect example of what tyler joseph can be as a musician.
this album is a regression in all ways from trench. it's back to filler, back to regular bubble pop, back to the blurryface formula. save for a few songs, most of this album could be throwaways, and, while the stream/story do help the album, they don't save it. unfortunately this is even less consistent than their pre-trench works. it has higher highs because of the production, but far lower lows because of some of this terrible songwriting. most of it is just boring.
this is the ... read more
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