Something changed for Brockhampton with “Sugar”. The 2019 single, a discreet and charming ballad about adolescence, love and heartache, was the group’s most successful song by many metrics: it’s their only entry on the Billboard Hot 100, which reached the number 66; is platinum certified by the RIAA; is the first song of the band that obtains an official remix, with Dua Lipa, neither more nor less. “Sugar” is also his most traditional song, structured to give featured members a proper role: guest Ryan Beatty sings the welcoming chorus; Dom McLennon and Matt Champion rap solid verses; Bearface handles one pre-color and the other; and leader Kevin Abstract sings the bridge. No one raps on One Direction; there are no strong and visible production tricks; and finished in about 205 seconds. At best, it could be anyone’s song.
Roadrunner: new light, new machine, the sixth album of the bustling but sensitive hip-hop collective, maintains this focus on melody and economy, resulting in the group’s most impressive and focused album. This is Brockhampton at his most effective time, reviewing the missing instrumental and self-examination attempts. Previously, Brockhampton’s songs were long and incoherent, which also made his albums long and incoherent. Meanwhile, a characteristic Brockhampton rhythm was created with a unique, often extravagant loop: “Boogie” has a hurtful siren; “Gold” has an arpeggio; “Boy Bye” has what I can best describe as a pizzicato MIDI violin.
The pulses are more subtle Roadrunner, with marked blooms and an emphasis on mood: melancholy happiness in “Chain On” and “When I Ball”, passionate bragging in “Bankroll”. Without the cluttered holes and messy snippets in the foreground, the music is robust and even sumptuous, as with the suite of “Bankroll,” “The Light” and “Windows,” all co-produced by Abstract, Romil Hemnani, and Jabari Manwa. . In these three songs, the strongest pull of the album, you feel the brazen confidence of the rappers, regardless of whether they spit or open up. It’s fascinating.
Since its inception, Brockhampton has given priority to uncontrolled creativity and self-filtering without filtering over discipline or structure. That’s why their songs have too many verses, their albums have too many failed experiments, and that’s how you get something like that. IridescenceIt’s “Honey,” which looks like a collection of embroidered streams of stitched air. Roadrunner it pressurizes this dispersed energy and the mood is consistent, even lush. Only one song, the winning “Windows”, with a huge Houston-style rhythm, features an abuse of verse, while the others emphasize the specific talent of the members, as when Merlyn Wood plays the man in “Buzzcut.”
The group also continues to blur its line between hip-hop and pop. The rap rhythms are polished enough to complement the boys ’band cuts, which maintain a metronome quality. The pop song “I’ll Take You On,” in particular, is a triumph, balancing a calm, quiet rhythm with harmonies of love. While focusing on colored individuality, they sound best when they finally match in a synchronized unit.
His new discipline extends to his confessionals. In the past, a Brockhampton song was an opportunity to dig in and explain all the possible traumas, but still Roadrunner, their lives seep into compelling fragments. In the opening opening, “Buzzcut,” Kevin Abstract threads his colorful rap with evocative mini-scenes: “Thank God you let me fall on the couch,” “My family cursed.” He does the same in “The Light,” picking up lost lines like, “I was broken and desperate, leaning on my best friends.” We don’t need much more.
Darkness appears most strongly in “The Light,” where the operatic joker Joba describes his father’s suicide and its tormenting consequences. Joba’s story is not linear, placing the listener in his whirlwind: “Lost, aimless,” “I hope it was painless,” “I know you cared,” “I heard my mother screaming,” “You I miss”. His voices are tactfully mixed into the mix, not burying Joba’s words as much as immersing him in the music. It is perhaps the most poignant moment Brockhampton has ever recorded.
Elsewhere, they sound liberated. Matt Champion is his best rapper and he shines here. Their lines may not mean a ton, but they’re wonderful to imitate, like when you rap in “Nightmares, it’s full of scare the moment Freddy sinks you” in “Windows” or the way he marks : “This is a traffic jam for you Whims and misfortunes / For the people behind you who stay on your toes”, in “Don’t shoot the party”. Everyone sounds like the best versions of themselves, focused, committed, inspired. The joy of being collective bleeds in all the bars and hookups. For a change, it’s a Brockhampton album that doesn’t tell you what to think or feel; it just sounds good.
Buy: Rough Trade
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