A Great Chaos

Although I'm a pretty big fan of the rage wave and I'm generally a fan of Ken Carson, I had yet to be fully engaged with one of his projects and enjoy it all the way through. Although projects like Project X and X had obvious strong points to them, there were glaring issues I had with them that held them back. With A Great Chaos, we get Ken Carson's overall best album, which stays consistently fun and entertaining. It's easily his best sounding record yet with great production and Ken's overall best and most captivating performances.

While I wouldn't go as far as to say I love every single beat on this thing, the production is pretty damn good and captures the overall aesthetic well. Save for an occasional track such as Lose It which has an overly compressed beat that sounds harsh to the ear, the production maintains the edge and rawness that makes rage music exciting while sounding a lot more polished and well-put together than past Ken projects. It also has a nice variety as well, with some explosive beats such as the ones found on Fighting My Demons or Me N My Kup as opposed to the chiller synth-heavy ones like Succubus. The beats also typically have things that make them stand out, such as the stop and start effect that's added to the beginning of Jennifer's Body or the eerie, nocturnal background melodies that compliment the hard-hitting instrumental on Singapore. Overall, the production captures a lot of different feelings while keeping the vibe going, and it's also got a lot of detail put into it as well.

While the beats are pretty great and are often the highlight of these tracks, Ken's performances on them are often great as well, with this project seeing him grow as a rapper and vocalist and sounding the most energized and charismatic as he's ever noticed. It's hard to describe, but Ken has a high-pitched voice that's harsh to the ear, and it should sound grating, but he's able to make it so it sounds good. This is especially seen on songs like Fighting My Demons and i need u, where his almost sharp, cutting delivery matches the electronic sounding production really well. This is the vocal style he most often uses, but he's still able to vary it up enough to keep it entertaining, as he's able to tone it down but still bring a lot of personality on tracks like Paranoid.

In addition to him being more interesting as a vocalist, Ken's also grown a decent amount in terms of technical rapping, since the flows are very much improved and a lot less predictable. Oftentimes, Ken would try to fit in as many syllables as he could into his bars, and while at times he could sound good doing that, it would occasionally get repetitive and at times sound sloppy. On AGC, Ken's flows sound incredibly smooth on tracks like Green Room where he showcases his melodic ability, and especially on Nightcore, which is maybe my favorite track in general. In general, his flows are way more unpredictable than they were in the past, with songs like Singapore, Jennifer's Body, and Paranoid also being some of the highlights on this album in large part to Ken's charismatic rapping.

While I wouldn't say Ken has a lot to offer in terms of substance, he can still write a catchy, well-structured song and occasionally get more emotional on a track like Green Room. He does have some lyrical personality and is capable of dropping some witty one liners that give his verses more life. There are times where his subject matter maybe gets a bit repetitive, but for a party of an album like this, that's not necessarily needed, and Ken generally fills the lyrical quota necessary to make this a fun experience.

Despite me having a lot of fun listening to this record, there are still times where it tends to run a bit thin creatively. Even if songs like Pots, Hardcore, and Like This aren't necessarily bad songs, how much are they really adding to this album? I do think that one aspect Ken could still get better at is quality control, since some of these songs do little but carry on the vibe and offer little beyond that and aren't that essential to the listening experience.

I will say though that even though I thoroughly enjoyed this album, Ken has even more room to grow beyond this, since I think this was his first consistently thrilling album and I think he has the potential to make something truly great and defining in the rage sub-genre. That being said, this is hands down his best album and I had a ton of fun listening to it. It has a lot of energy, it maintains the dark Opium aesthetic really well while also having some real brightness and blissfulness to it that makes it a really solid rage album that's perfect for a party or just to get hyped to. Overall, A Great Chaos is easily the most creative thing I've heard from Ken Carson and I'll be excited to see what he does next.

Track List Ranking
1. Green Room
2. Nightcore
3. Singapore
4. Fighting My Demons
5. Paranoid
6. Jennifer's Body
7. i need u
8. Nightcore 2
9. Succubus
10. Me N My Kup
11. Overtime
12. Vampire Hour
13. It's Over
14. Rockstar Lifestyle
15. Pots
16. Like This
17. Hardcore
18. Lose It