Review Summary: The darkness looks back.
Stare long enough into the ominous setting of
He Left Nothing for the Swim Back and you can see it stare back: a distant pair of glowing eyes piercing from the mist, their gaze unwavering from the listener as they’re submerged into the depths. SKECH185’s style is suitably unsettling; his rough, booming voice causes each bar he spits to sound like a command that demands immediate obedience, and his consistently confrontational delivery supplies a tangible amount of grit to his menacing and intermittently desperate tone. The New York-based MC provides no respite as he details grim tales of growing up in his hometown of Chicago, wrestles with insecurities, faces nightmares, and comments on a country that continuously reneges on its promises. There’s no character disguising Willie Lee McIntyre Jr., no braggadocio, no posturing—SKECH leaves himself exposed, forcing the audience to sink into his narratives and devotedly follow wherever his thoughts may wander. In one moment, he’s walking the streets of his younger years during “East Side Summer,” lamenting the loss of youth and describing the warzone-like environment he was forced to contend with. In another, he’s cornered by endless queries about life as depression creeps over his shoulder. Erupting from the underground,
He Left Nothing… is an awe-inspiring, fearsome artistic statement absent of restraint, combining a gritty rapping performance with spellbinding beats that illustrate a disquieting landscape.
SKECH185’s lyricism, though occasionally delving into esoteric metaphors, tends to emphasize lethal precision and honesty, acting as a complement to his gruff methodology. The vitriol—doubtlessly augmented by the album’s recording process, which occurred during the isolation of the COVID lockdown—is frequently enough to bring the rapper’s voice to a shout. Aforementioned cut “East Side Summer” begins by unraveling a sudden shooting and how astonishingly mundane its aftermath was; it was just another ordinary day trying to navigate a turbulent metropole. SKECH185 bitterly admits he would’ve traded it all for a tire swing and simplicity, using his frantic, nervous flow and resounding voice to match the action and ultimate despondency of the verses. The intensity reaches a fever pitch in “The River” as SKECH185 grapples with the broken freedom of his homeland—a series of half-truths hiding a brutal reality—and the overwhelming concern he feels for children unaware of that reality. McIntyre Jr.'s panic is evident; his aversion to concealing a track's intentions allows for his words and his evocative expression of them to land devastating blows, which assists in crafting the disc's threatening vibe. Whether delving into his personal anxieties on “Up to Speed” or embarking upon an uninhibited outburst on the title track, the MC’s emotional vocals and uncompromising bars add incredible complexity to the LP, making it both an achingly personal project and an engrossing cavalcade of shocking verses.
Jeff Markey provides a voice to the eerie aura permeating each verse. His beats feel unnervingly detached from everything happening around them—they’re echoing behind a thick wall of fog, looping aimlessly as if they’ve gotten lost in the haze—which paradoxically makes them all the more relevant; they become an ideal reflection for SKECH’s prose as he empties his mind of all that pesters it. It’s an omnipresent unease that captures McIntyre Jr.’s disarray, taking the form of reverberating, buzzsaw-like synths, biting ambience that lurks underneath every phrase, stray horn flourishes, and faraway piano notes. When tossed into a blender, it’s a cacophony held together by a string; the violent transitions of “Badly Drawn Hero” demonstrate the fragile stability in play, bounding from a warped synth beat to blaring electronics, eventually evolving into a drum-heavy beat as SKECH maneuvers in and out of its confines. Markey’s versatility generates a plethora of intriguing compositions that provide
He Left Nothing… with amazing variety, be it the distorted, nursery rhyme-esque chimes that dominate “Western Automatic Music, pt. 1,” or the raucous jazz band sampling of “Jay Street. He’s capable of dominating a tune if its thematic contents necessitate it, though Markey’s central purpose is coloring in the blanks with distinctly discomfiting textures, supporting SKECH’s rapping by contrasting its desperation.
The two artists combined make for a lethal pairing, together granting
He Left Nothing… its mysterious, gloomy atmosphere. Their realm of abstract, disconcerting beats and aggressive rapping fits comfortably into the niche carved by the likes of Elucid or Billy Woods—the latter of whom makes a feature appearance on “Western Automatic Music, pt.2.” Everything about the record, from its mesmerizing, albeit haunting cover, to its acidic prose, is delicately
off in a manner comparable to the aforementioned MCs; nothing feels proper, or balanced, or calm—an impression compounded by the layering and distortion liberally applied to McIntyre Jr.’s vocals. Markey’s beats can constantly disorient a listener whose focus is diverted by their hypnotic loops and abrasive tendencies, and SKECH185’s ferocious delivery forces his provocative prose to be reckoned with—its messages cannot be reliably tucked into the background. Despite the comparatively brief duration of the album, its consistency, atmosphere, and engaging arrangements grant it a grander sense of scale. Sinking into those distant eyes adorning
He Left Nothing… is a chilling, beguiling journey whose rewards are continuously revealed over repeated treks, opening up to exhibit foreboding chasms that stretch deeper still. SKECH185’s urgent style leads the way into the darkness, and there’s no peace found once his words grab hold.
