𝙄𝙩'𝙨 𝙖𝙡𝙧𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩.

After over four long years of constant teases, leaks, disappointments and scandals, the hype rollercoaster for the most anticipated rap album since Donda has finally stopped. It seems like a lifetime ago that the world was graced with Whole Lotta Red, the Christmas Day 2020 surprise that would go on to mould an entire wave of hip-hop talent: the linchpin of hip-hop’s rage trend, becoming perennial debate in the most annoying of online ... read more

𝘼 𝙢𝙪𝙘𝙝-𝙣𝙚𝙚𝙙𝙚𝙙 𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙥𝙖𝙘𝙚, 𝙗𝙪𝙩 𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙬𝙝𝙤𝙨𝙚 𝙞𝙙𝙚𝙖𝙨 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙢𝙤𝙧𝙚 𝙖𝙙𝙢𝙞𝙧𝙖𝙗𝙡𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙣 𝙢𝙚𝙢𝙤𝙧𝙖𝙗𝙡𝙚.

Last year, smokedope2016’s breakout project THE COMEUP was an unexpected entry in my year-end list. The anonymous Virginia rapper saw immense success in 2024, thanks to the clever blend of influences ... read more

𝘼 𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙧𝙞𝙛𝙮𝙞𝙣𝙜, 𝙝𝙖𝙧𝙧𝙤𝙬𝙞𝙣𝙜, 𝙗𝙪𝙩 𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙞𝙧𝙚𝙡𝙮 𝙣𝙚𝙘𝙚𝙨𝙨𝙖𝙧𝙮 𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙚𝙭𝙥𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚.

Its haunting echoes ring out like a thin draught under an old door, contorting in broken eddies with a molasses-thick pace. Warped, incessantly looped vocal passages hypnotise like a schizophrenic virus. Troughs of dead air and mechanical whirr ... read more

𝙋𝙪𝙚𝙧𝙩𝙤 𝙍𝙞𝙘𝙤’𝙨 𝙪𝙣𝙤𝙛𝙛𝙞𝙘𝙞𝙖𝙡 𝙢𝙖𝙨𝙘𝙤𝙩 𝙬𝙖𝙫𝙚𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙞𝙨𝙡𝙖𝙣𝙙’𝙨 𝙛𝙡𝙖𝙜 𝙝𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙣 𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧.

Bad Bunny songs have always had some amazing progressions. Whether it be the trap flair of his earlier albums or the tropical bliss of 𝘜𝘯 𝘝𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘰 𝘚𝘪𝘯 𝘛𝘪, the bundles of influences across his now ... read more

𝘼𝙣 𝙖𝙡𝙗𝙪𝙢 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙘𝙝𝙚𝙨, 𝙗𝙪𝙩 𝙘𝙖𝙣 𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝙥𝙪𝙣𝙘𝙝 𝙝𝙖𝙧𝙙.

Now on their third record, following 2022’s 𝘍𝘦𝘢𝘳 & 𝘋𝘢𝘨𝘨𝘦𝘳, Zürich band Paleface Swiss deliver an earnest and pommelling brand of deathcore that, while clearly steeped in influence, comes from a heartily genuine place. It’s difficult not to see the charm in the ... read more

𝙒𝙃𝘼𝙈, 𝙒𝙃𝘼𝙈, 𝙒𝙃𝘼𝙈. 𝘽𝙞𝙩𝙘𝙝 𝙄'𝙢 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙗𝙖𝙗𝙮.

First review of 2025, let's go!
Lil Baby has been a trap mainstay ever since 𝘏𝘢𝘳𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘯 𝘌𝘷𝘦𝘳 and 𝘚𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘵 𝘎𝘰𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘱 turned heads back in 2018. From then up until now though, he’s done little to prove his worth on his solo records. While we did see a great first-leg run on 2020’s ... read more

SsoMe sounds like an active car crash. I wouldn’t be surprised if it actually samples a car crash. One of the most blown out and insane releases experimental hip-hop has seen for a minute, this mixtape explodes like a thousand atomic bombs, frying your eardrums with behemoth tsunamis of harsh, über-distorted bass, a cacophony of manic sound effects, and demonic, heavily manipulated vocals that sound pulled directly from hell. If Sematary represents the extremes of $uicideboy$-style ... read more

For those who don’t know, cloud rap is back. Pioneered in the 2010s by legends like Lil B, A$AP Rocky, and of course, the dual Swedish powerhouses of Drain Gang and Sad Boys, it is seeing a resurgence as a slightly ironic, nostalgia-tinged aesthetic choice that revives the core elements that those aforementioned genre mainstays have slowly drifted away from. smokedope2016 is the force propelling this bandwagon, relishing in an astronomically quick rise that saw him eclipse ... read more

December 8, 2019. Earlier this year, the anniversary of Juice WRLD’s tragically early death reached its five year milestone. Over five years ago, his friends and family said goodbye for the last time, and laid his body to rest. Half a decade on, and the cabal of scumbags and money-hungry label executives who preside over his musical estate, released the THIRD posthumous Juice WRLD album. At this point there are more albums under the Juice WRLD name that were released after his death than ... read more

In 2024, the Kendrick frenzy proved to be at a staggering, global fever pitch. One of the most exciting distractions of the year was the unignorable Drake beef, seeing everybody and their grandparents waiting with bated breath for the next crumb of information to drop from the high-profile spat. It really should have come as no surprise that the weaker opponent, who poked the bear and then limped away when it awoke, lost the feud, scoring goal after goal into his own net as Kendrick fired ... read more

Hip-hop’s trajectory in the past decade has a more concentrated past than the last 50 years of rock music, constantly shifting trends and sprouting new sub-genres, quicker than ever with the advent of the internet and streaming. From gangster anthems, to mainstream pop appeal, to wild experimentalism, the rap game has shifted away from an inherent need for linguistic masters and towards the melodic, ear-grabbing ideals of the much more vibier R&B, trap and rage. This isn’t to ... read more

Unnerving, brash, paranoid and oddly beautiful, Xiu Xiu’s fourteenth record is their best work since 2017’s Forget. The group has always straddled an extreme number of disciplines, but more recently sounded too embroiled in their strangeness, lacking a certain appeal outside of theatrical, experimental shock value. 13” reels this notion back in, flying the band’s freak flag high, but with a measured, catchy pop songwriting appreciation that allows the more abrasive ... read more

In 2018, Julian Casablancas’ weirdo rock side-project the Voidz released their second project, Virtue. A sprawling art-rock opus, this record was obtuse and strange in all the right ways, and alongside Jack White’s Boarding House Reach that released just a week before it, presented new flavours of rock experimentalism that were out-there, but still refreshingly thoughtful. A heavy use of auto-tune, and elements of hypnagogic, synth and noise pop contributed to this Ariel Pinkian ... read more

Am I listening to the right album? Surely this clumsy, rigid collection of basic beat loops that sound like someone messing around on FL Studio for a day isn’t the long-awaited posthumous release for generational, gone-too-soon hyperpop powerhouse SOPHIE? Unfortunately yes, for a record with such a weighty precedent, this self-titled SOPHIE record, coming nearly four years after her tragically early death, is one of the most confusing records released this year. While apparently this ... read more

In 2024, a new Westside Gunn song, or by extension an entire project, is simply impossibly redundant. Since the career highs of Pray for Paris and the double-sided Hitler Wears Hermes 8, the rapper has squandered his lofty place in the burgeoning gangsta rap resurgence with increasingly boring and generic projects that do little but ride on the coattails of earlier success. For someone who has been following Gunn’s rise, alongside labelmates Benny and Conway, since Hitler 1, it has been a ... read more

More barren and formless than its companion Piedras 1, the second disc of Nicolas Jaar’s play soundtrack might not reach the impressive emotive peaks of the first, but still provides some quality tracks that are great additions to the greater Jaar catalogue. Format wise, much as the first, the flow of Piedras 2 is more important than its individual moments, a contemplative collage of minimal backdrops that phase in and out of each other. Save for the bassy head-bumper Sin Conexion’s ... read more

Initially written as the first half of a score to a play that centres on a dystopian, alternate-future Chile, Piedras 1 has been given a new life as a standalone release in Nicolas Jaar’s sprawling musical catalogue. Lately Jaar has expanded his efforts beyond the idiosyncratic microhouse that defined his 2010s career, with records like Cenizas and Telas exploring sparse ambient soundscapes. Kept busy by collaborations and side projects since that pair of 2020 records, Piedras 1 & 2 ... read more

CHROMAKOPIA is a difficult record to sum up. Yes, there is a clear overarching theme of fame-induced paranoia that propels its tension, but that is merely one aspect to Tyler, the Creator’s eighth studio release. It doesn’t quite have the same clearly-defined chapter-turn aesthetics of previous works, despite the striking new persona and cohesive visual themes that we have come to expect from Tyler’s Swift-like eras. But while the on-edge, masked savant hiding behind the ... read more

Outlasting so many before them with a constantly impressive discography, Touché Amoré once again nail all of the hallmarks that make their post-hardcore balladry so great. In fact, the momentum only continues to grow following 2020’s wonderful Lament, striking the perfect balance of the band’s emo-tinged rawness, mainly driven by Jeremy Bolm’s raspy, uncompromising vocals, and contemporary instrumental sensibilities. Now two records removed from the weighty ... read more

For how much they let the unpredictable winds of formlessness dictate their recordings, there has always been a palpable immediacy to the music of post-rock collective Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Fiercely contemplative and partisan without saying a word beyond their titles, the band’s slow builds have been a staple in the typically visual realm of interpretation, and more than ever use their unspoken voice as directly as their semi-anonymous ethos allows. Their eighth record is the most ... read more