HELLMODE

Jeff Rosenstock does it again

I've been very excited about this as soon as I realized he was dropping singles for it. Jeff Rosenstock managed to become one of my favorite musicians working today over the summer. I binged his entire discog over a month and was absolute head of heels for 2016's "WORRY." I fell in love with his style. Somehow, this album lived up to my insanely high expectations.

Singles "LIKED U BETTER", "DOUBT" and "HEALMODE" were all in and out of my rotation when they were released, with "DOUBT" being my favorite. These songs got me excited for the album, but at the time of their release, I never loved any of them that much (except for "HEALMODE" I was kind of in love there). The release of the full album has made me appreciate all of these songs so much more, especially the steady build on "DOUBT".

All of the new songs are incredible too, songs like "WILL U STILL U", "SOFT LIVING" and "I WANNA BE WRONG" are all some of Rosenstocks' best. The bonkers progression of "WILL U STILL U" blew me away on first listen and keeps me coming back. "SOFT LIVING" uses heavy guitars with soft and more relaxed singing from Rosenstock to create a very unique atmosphere. "I WANNA BE WRONG" is a pretty standard banger from Rosenstock with one of my favorite outros he's ever made.

My favorite moment on the entire record comes from the album's seven-minute closer, "3 SUMMERS". This song has two of my favorite verses on the whole album. One covers the frustrations of modern living, and the other focuses on how necessary love is in his eyes. All of this climaxes with a short and sweet acoustic outro that turns into a bombastic chant.

"HELLMODE" manages to live up to the high standards of Rosenstock's other projects and at points surpass them in how much I've been revisiting it. This album further proves the point that Jeff might be the best musician alive and working today.

Favorites are WILL U STILL U, DOUBT, and 3 SUMMERS