Music Reviews

So, after the two major releases of this year so far (those being the new Earl Sweatshirt and The Weeknd records) I wanted to branch out and try something new for a change. And while I was browsing the dark dark lands of rate your music, I stumbled upon this – a brand new Bonobo album. The album mainly caught my eye with it’s SUPER relaxing album cover, which is slowly becoming one of my favorite album covers to look at in a long time. But you didn’t come here to listen to me praise this album cover, I’m here to critique the music – so is it any good? Well at it’s worst, Fragments is some really nice background music that might lack some punch to it, but is overall harmless – but at it’s best it’s some of the finest most well-crafted house beats I’ve heard all year (which considering this year just started out is not saying much, but you get what I mean). I didn’t really have high expectations going into this record since I know little to nothing about this guy’s music, but this honestly kinda blew me away – like I expected something really chill, somehting I could just put in the background and just vibe to, but got so much more out of – these songs have so much life, hope and emotion in them, it’s like the cover perfectly represents what the music sounds like.

Right off the back, there are no songs I like actively dislike off this album – some just hit harder than others and some just stick out more then others. That being said, some stand out tracks for me definetly include tracks like the short but sweet opener „Polyghost“, AKA the perfect tone-setter for this whole album – like if you don’t like what you hear on this song here then you are probably better off listening to something else. Then definetly the song that right follows this one „Shadows“, which might just have my favorite beat off of this album and also my favorite vocal performance (from the featured artist Jordan Rakei) for sure – yeah, there is a lot to like about this song. Probably the most ambitious cut this album provides is „Otomo“, which has GOT TO BE one of the BEST drops I’ve heard probably like ever – like sure, this song takes time to get to that point, but if you give it that time, if you’re patient enough, it will reward you that much more. Seriously, I can’t get over the RUSH of dopamine I get when the drop on this song comes, it’s pretty much flawless. „Tides“ with Jamilia Woods is also pretty sweet and serves as a nice cooldown after the hellride that was Otomo – her vocals compliment the track pretty well and it’s another sweet-sounding piece to the puzzle. „Closer“, another one of my favorites, has such an unexplainable atmosphere surrounding it – the synth work on here is also out of this world, like innitially I didn’t really think all that much about the song, but the second the synths hit, it was like I was transpored into another dimension – yeah, this track is pretty much saved by them. Now my personal faorite song is hands down „Age of Phase“, which has THE most infectious sample and melody on this whole album, it’s like Crystal Castle’s „Kept“ but like the lofi hip-hop beats to study to version of it. I could honestly listen just to that sample alone for hours and not get tired of it. Now that’s pretty much about it for the GREAT songs, you know, the „best and most well-crafted house beats of the year“ songs. Now as for the rest of the album… It’s okay still. And there is a lot of beauty to be found in the rest of these tracks – „Elysian“ has a nice string section attached to it, „From You“ with Joji has a nice Joji attached to it and „Sapien“ is honestly kinda underrated, the song is generally seen as one of the worst on the album and I just don’t find that to be the case – but honestly they all still just lack something extra the other ones have. Most of these track are also located on the second half of the album, so yeah, this album is pretty front-loaded, but not to the point where the second half is not worth listening to, I would compare it to the new The Weeknd album in that regard, where it’s good as a whole, but the first half obviously out-shines the second half.

(God, I never know how to wrap these things up) uhhh so YEAH, not bad first impression if I do say so myself – this record isn’t much and you won’t get much out of it expecting much – but what it is is a fun chill ride, that if you give it the benefit of the doubt can take you on a blissful journey. (also this album is a way for me to try this new „favorite/least favorite songs“ feature I definetly thought of myself and didn’t just shamelessly steal from Fantano and other creators)

-favorite tracks: Shadows, Otomo, Closer, Age of Phase

-least favorite tracks: Day by Day, Counterpart

Light 7/10