What the hell just happened.
Yeah so this apparently is actually real – Lil Yachty out of all people dropping a potential album of the year in the form of an hour long neo-psychedelic rock record and yes it is actually as bonkers as it sounds on paper. I mean I’ve seen many comparisons of this record to Tame Impala but this is legitimately better then Tame Impala’s last album and it’s somehow not even close. So let’s stop messing around and jump right into this thing, shall we?
The album opens up with the larger-than-life „the BLACK seminole.“ which when I first put this album on only having heard „Poland“ from Yachty at that time… Well saying my mind was blown is an understatement. This track is a 7 minute long epic that just only keeps on getting better – it starts with these swelling synths that slowely but surely transition into this Pink Floyd-esk explosion in sound that just sounds like something straight out of The Dark Side Of The Moon which is something I thought I’d never say about a fricking Lil Yachty song but here we are. Lil Yachty’s drenched in reverb voice goes surprisingly well with this sound, he sounds super natural and comfortable on this song and that’s only the beginning of the song – then out of nowhere come these heavenly guitar riffs that just overwhelm the rest of the instrumentation and sound legitimately just out of this world. After this whole thing is over a much needed break is provided to us before the final leg of the song kicks in and oh boy did Yachty save the best for last. Nothing I can say can really do those final 2 minutes of this song justice so just please go listen to it, if it has to be anything from this album make it this song. After that crazy intro we have the song „the ride-“ which actually builds on the previous song very nicely. It’s definetly not as explosive in sound nor as ambitious but it continues the vibe of the album very well and the guitar licks and synthwork are as amazing as ever. „running out of time“ is the next song and this one didn’t quite hit the musical peaks for me as the last two did but what really makes this one stand out is that the production on this song was done by none other than Magdalena Bay so I just have to love it either way. No but seriously, this is another pretty good song of the bunch – by this point you kinda accept that this is the sound Yachty is going for so the shock factor is kinda gone but the more you start to appreciate the little things in the production of this thing, it really feels like the musical equivalent of just an explosion of colors. Next up are the songs „pRETTy“ and „:(failure:)“ which I put together here because I think these are probably the most forgetable songs on the whole album and I actually just have nothing to say about them, except that the latter of the two is I guess a solid transition into the next two, which spoiler alert, are the polar opposite of the last two. So speaking of which the next two songs „THE zone-“ and „WE SAW THE SUN!“ are in a way two parts of one big song (yeah you can kinda tell where the Pink Floyd comparisons are coming from) and are both just amazing. „THE zone“ is a pretty solid way to kick this whole part of the album of, the highlight here is definetly the drumming, which you can say basically about the entire album, but this song especially just something about the way those drums are mixed is just so clean and crisp, it’s heaven to the ears. This song also has an amazing outro that just in the smoothest way imaginable transitions into the follow-up song „WE SAW THE SUN!“ which is equally as good or I’d say even better then it’s predecessor. I mean this song just makes you FEEL like the sun is shining right on you and everything is just the way it should be. Also whatever happens with Yachty’s vocals around the 2:20 mark in the song? Yeah just that. The next song right after that is „drive ME crazy!“ and there is just one word to describe what makes this song objectively good – the BASS. Well that’s technically two words but still – the bassline on this track is the reason I wake up in the morning. Even though the song itself is kind of all over the place and is lacking in focus a bit the bassline just makes up for all of that in my eyes, it’s seriously that good. Right after that we have „IVE OFFICIALLY LOST VISION!!!!“ and with this track I’ve officialy lost my ability to find bad things about these songs, because this one is RAW. Like Death Grips levels of raw, this tracks doesn’t waste a second in letting you know it’s gonna kick some serious ass. Once the distorted guitar build up kicks in you just know you’re in for a ride and it’s songs like these where I just have to keep reminding myself that I’m listening to a LIL YACHTY project. Definetly one of the most agressive and energetic things I’ve heard Yachty on period. However after that come a few songs that I enjoy but just have at this point nothing new to say about – like take for example „sAy sOMETHINg“, it’s a good song, there is nothing particularly wrong with it, it sounds good when it’s on, but there are simply just not any specific qualities differentiating this one from many of the other song on here. I do really enjoy „paint THE sky“ though, the loud kick drums mixed with the spacey synths sound almost like something that HOME would make and Yachty works surprisingly well on it, it’s once again something completely different but he just makes it work even though it really shouldn’t in theory. The closing track to this thing „REACH THE SUNSHINE.“ is as expected as insane as the opener is – it opens up with this really strange almost burried beat with gradually building synths and different sounds and Yachty just singing his lung out over it when this huge pay-off comes out of the blue that actually build up even more until it slowely fades away into this slowburn orchestral outro that really makes this whole song and album feel complete. So yeah, this song is the definition of a closing track, enough said.
WOW I mean I saw the average ratings for this album being so high and I knew that it was probably gonna be good but nothing could have prepared me for how REALLY good this actually was. Like I’m genuinely impressed this is the same guy that made „Poland“. So yeah, I mean it goes without saying but just give this album a shot, I think you’re seriously not gonna regret it.
-favorite tracks: the BLACK seminole.; the ride-; THE zone-; WE SAW THE SUN!; drive ME crazy!; IVE OFFICIALLY LOST VISION!!!!; paint THE sky; REACH THE SUNSHINE.
-least favorite tracks: pRETTy; :(failure(:; sAy sOMETHINGg
Decent 8/10