Music Reviews

Christmas came EARLy this year.

So after a 4-year long wait we gather here together for the new Earl Sweatshirt release. Honestly I’m not super familiar with Earl’s work up to this point, the only album I heard from him in it’s entirety was „Some Rap Songs“, which still to this day is a really special album to me – I think it’s the closest things to doing drugs without actually doing drugs. Like there is something just so haunting and fundementally broken about it, even after all this time I can’t wrap me hear around it – that album for me really solidified Earl as one oh modern hip-hop’s greatest offenders in terms off production and uniquness. Now as for this album over here, I think that it only builds on the foundation that „Some Rap Songs“ layed down with a more modern twist – this is a much more accesible album than that album was. It’s a lot more shorter, clocking in at only 24 minutes, which is basically mixtape length. The album is filled with the trademark Earl Sweatshirt druggy, hard-to-pin-down production with the inclusion of more trap beats as well as some muble rap-isms scattered throughout the project. Also I think that Earl is legitemately in a much better headspace than he was on his last couple of LP – this album is much more free and much less i guess depressed than „Some Rap Songs“ was. Earl also is noticably more vocally present on this album then before – these songs just burst with confidence.

Speaking of songs that vocally AND instrumentally burst with confidence, the opener „Old Friend“ is sure as hell one of them. For how short this intro is, it definetly doesn’t waste any time kicking the door right open with an ethereal beat that has little to no percussion whatsoever, just some crazy synths with Earl’s voice sliding on top of them, like you can tell this is Earl in his natural habitat. Almost as smooth as the song itself is the transition into „2010“ which overall is just a great song, even though a bit too repetetive. Earl sounds hungry on here and his rapping is just so effortless and it translates super well to the listener. Next up is the title track „Sick!“ and the first real showcase of this album’s much more accesible trap-flavoured beats – it honestly sounds like something that would prefectly fit on „Some Rap Songs“ weirdly enough (minus the raging trap hi-hats i guess). By this point on the album we start to notice that this album is a bit of a mess, but that’s something you gotta expect when listen to Earl’s music – the next two songs completely throw the „1 to 2 minute songs MAX“ format this album has been following so far out the window and drops at us not one but TWO 4-minute songs, both with the only features this album features (heh). The first of the two „Vision“ featuring Zelooperz (which I honestly had no idea who was, sounds like a name for a Pokemon, but then again this man named himself after a piece of clothing lmao) is i guess the less enjoyable of the two for me, but that’s like having to pick between your favorite child, you love them both pretty much equally. This one is one of the more trap-inluenced songs and it’s done well enough to where it’s enjoyable, it doesn’t drag on for too long and it leads pretty nicely into the latter of the two „Tabula Rasa“, and pretty nice it is. I love the little vocal chop samples integrated into the piano-driven beat, it has Earl Sweatshirt written all over it. This one also features Armand Hammer, which is a match made in heaven. Both artist are in their A game here. After this we are back to the shorter songs with the song „Lye“ and I’m not gonna lye, this song is pretty heat. Probably the most jazzy song on the album, and you know me, I’m somewhat of a jazz enjoyer myself, so this was a nice change of pace for me. The beat is so smooth it should actually be illegal, aaaah, it’s so good. Also somewhere around here is when I realized something when I was giving this album like me third listen – Earl REALLY abuses the hell out of the „fading-in and out“ effect on this album (don’t know what it’s called, feel free to educate me in the comments). Like he does that A LOT on this record, especially on songs like these and the closing track and I’m not really sure how I feel about it – on one hand it kinda ruins some of the songs for me, but on the other it really doesn’t, I don’t know, I guess it kinda balances out and I’m just indifferent to it. Moving on we have the song „Lobby(Int)“, which I could honestly do without – it’s not a bad song by any stretch of the imagination, but the fact that after one of the best beats of the entire album we get this just uninspired trap mess… I ain’t mad, just dissapointed. Like even Earl sounds half asleep on this song. But yeah, you wouldn’t find this in the list of my favorite songs of this album, let me tell you. „God Laughs“ picks things up a bit, but not by much – I do mess with the sampling on this song though, there is something really cathartic and mysterious about it. The song „Titanic“ is like a more fleshed out version of „Lobby(Int)“ with a beat that honestly might just take the crown for the best trap beat on this whole album. The closer „Fire in the Hole“ is probably the best song of the album if we’re being honest, it’s the perfect note to end this album on. The guitar-work on this song is really something to behold and the beat just has so much life and personality, like everytime I listen to it I just close my eyes and pictue myself floating in space, because the song really got me feeling like that. It’s also one of those songs when you finnish hearing you just wanna listen to the whole thing again – AKA a good closer. The piano fade-out is also a nice touch, makes it feel more complete.

I think this album more than anything is a sign of something much more ambitious coming down the line – it shows not only artistic growth but Earl’s growth as a human being. The biggest flaws this album has are honestly just what it doesn’t have – it doesn’t have much of a direction nor ambition and it’s generaly just a little too short and a little too repetetive for my liking – like cut some of the longer songs short and add like 3 or 4 more songs – that i think would only make this an even more cohesive expirience. That being said, this album is still a fantastic display of talent and artistic growth and while I still prefer „Some Rap Songs“ over this, I can’t WAIT to see what Earl has in stock for us next.

Light 8/10