Review Summary: Got so crunk that I almost lost a testicle
BrokeNCYDE has never had a particularly illustrious music career, they’ve constantly been shadowed with a multitude of grievances throughout their ten years as a band; ranging from a particularly disastrous Warped Tour performance to a failed album Indiegogo attempt (In which they only received 5% of the funds they asked for). Despite these setbacks and this troubled history, they’ve managed to push forward and release a somewhat acceptable and, dare I say it,
”consistent” release for the first time in their discography. “All Grown Up” is easily the best effort the band has put forward in their careers; yet still when the going gets bad, it fails harder than Chernobyl’s nuclear reactors.
The first notable thing that springs out about this album is the leaps and bounds made in production quality; bells, alarms, and minimal amounts of other blips dominate the soundscape underneath waves of trap influenced, bass heavy beats. The hyper-active antics of previous releases have been turned down to a surprising degree and the result is a far more relaxed experience, such as in the laid back chill tones of “Trick or Treat.” A few fragments of their previous buzz-synth heavy, loudly produced past can be found in tracks such as “Geronimo”, and are just as annoying and headache inducing as before, detracting from the overall experience. Some experimental sound decisions were made throughout the effort, such as the influx of 8-bit in “1Up” which manages to blend relatively well with the backing bass line.
In the vocal department, the screaming has taken a back seat to the actual rapping here; while it is still on numerous tracks, it’s farther back in the mix and is utilized far more tastefully than before, such as in the experimental track “Kandyland 2.0.” His flow has improved since previous releases and it’s not an awkwardly produced mish-mash of randomly juxtaposed clean to harsh vocals as it was previously; segments are clearly defined and the songwriting’s become surprisingly cohesive. Tonally, the vocals are still nasally but not to the same extent as before. There are also a select few instances of sung vocals sprinkled in randomly to poor effect, unfortunately due to a majority of the sung vocals being out of tune. The lyricism has toned down from the quintessential ballads of hooking up with scene girls, to just hooking up with girls in general.
In a nutshell; brokeNCYDE has created what could be considered their magnum opus, their career defining work, and the culmination of their collaborative talent as a whole, which resulted in a barely average trap album. If they can completely ditch their harsh and poorly produced synth heavy roots, continue to improve the songwriting, tone down the filler (this album has a whopping 23 tracks), and continue to experiment in small doses, they could very possibly release an album that’s genuinely enjoyable as a mindless party album; until then, we have this very surprisingly large step in the right direction.
