Review Summary: A smooth, slow, and even somewhat jazzy rap record.
Rav has always been coupled up with Kill Bill: The Rapper ever since I saw them thanks to a podcast I listen to weekly, though Rav's music on his debut album is much more jazzy in terms of musicianship with slow beats for almost the entire first half of the record ("Solanine" and "Save Face As..." especially), with lyrical themes of immaturity and growing up into a young adult.
"Addlerall" is where the album first ditches its slower, smoothed out beats with a relatively quiet but still consistent voice - with the feature of Scuare on this track, it picks up vocally though it is not even two minutes long, but it manages to embed its words and choppy music into your brain before echoing out. We don't hear another song like this until later in the album, but we know very well that Rav has the potential to sound enthusiastic and active with unpredictable beats. Some of the sounds he throws into the mix seem like they come from a Noir film.
Though, the album immediately goes back to being slow with "A Better Place", the slow jam influence coming back with even more features, which breaks up what could be a monotonous record - and admittedly, it can be at times with how repetitive the tracks are as they all mostly share the same feel, but there's always some kind of sudden vocal inflection or it's as if Rav thought "hey, what if we throw this in there" to throw the listener off guard such as in this very song.
The album ends with the most experimental song yet, Tachyon - which is almost Death Grip-esque with the enthusiasm that Rav has in his voice, with heavy snare and hyper aggressive bass sounds seeping deep into the background while keeping Rav's vocals on the forefront.
Favorite tracks:
Solanine
Save Face As...
Addlerall
Lavender
Tachyon
