Review Summary: Effortlessly generic.
PartyNextDoor. August Alsina. Bryson Tiller. Tory Lanez. And introducing, dvsn. All these artists have tried to cash in on the wave of nocturnal, confessional R&B that Drake, The Weeknd, and Frank Ocean popularized back in 2011. It’s become somewhat of a running joke, the only way for bedroom producers to break into the mainstream nowadays. In 2010, everyone was trying to make Skrillex-style dubstep, and now it’s this. The sad reality is that none of them are all that unique and the sound has become so trite and uniform that entire hours of radio go by with no deviation. And dvsn, with milquetoast vocals and slightly-above-average production, do little to truly break the mold and produce a compelling listen.
I’ll preface this with a big disclaimer: if you like the aforementioned, then you’ll probably love this album. It’s more of the same. If you are on the fence about them, this album won’t change your mind. I was intrigued by “The Line” and eagerly awaited this album, unenthused by the other singles. So make of that what you will. With that being said, let’s move onto the substance of this review.
The album opens up with the fairly low-key “With Me.” Dvsn’s voice is mixed fairly low and reverbed up (a common production technique for this genre, overdone to the point of infamy). The production is the same trap-lite that folks like August Alsina and Bryson Tiller have been trafficking in since 2013. The verses go by without any fanfare, and he doesn’t really show off any kind of rich vocal ability. The track itself is overly long (a 3-minute song wrapped in a 6-minute shell), and fails to burst into anything memorable. The next few tracks are the same. It’s worth mentioning that dvsn is the first singer of his ilk to literally devote a gospel-style chorus to the Rhythm Method, but in a world where date rape is a Grammy-worthy topic, it’s not surprising. “Try / Effortless” is a bit more polished, bringing the vocals forward in the mix and changing up the production. The vocals are still fairly anonymous, but the beat is at least more engaging. It definitely would have served as a better first track than “With Me” or “Too Deep.” Production-wise, “In + Out” and “Do It Well” are good enough to at least chart somewhere, but they don’t quite work on a lyrical level.
And generally, this album fails to excite lyrically. Like all their contemporaries, dvsn dwells in the realm of late-night hook-ups and narcotized longing. “The Line” reaches for “Bad Religion”-style catharsis, and just barely misses the mark. The coda (swirling synths soundtracking the recitation of the line “at the end of it all, I’m coming back to you”) is probably the best single moment on this album, and is the best this album has to offer lyrically. The rest of the album flits between eyerollingly bad or unintentionally hilarious. The title track, “Sept 5th,” boasts this gem: “I can’t shake the feeling that I could make it better if I could have sex with you.” And that’s not a throwaway line either. That’s the chorus. The lyrics on “Another One” are also laughably bad, like when he sings “sometimes we take our clothes off/to find the naked truth.” But what specifically makes “Sept 5th” (the song) so heartbreaking is that Nineteen85 (the primary producer for this project) provides one of the best beats he’s ever made on this track. The overdriven wails are straight out of the Shlohmo/Illangelo playbook, and the drums are forceful enough to give the sampled guitar a bit of tension. It flows in a way that no Drake song has since “Take Care.” It’s a beat that, had a more capable lyricist and singer taken it, would’ve turned into an incredible song. But here, it just shows how poor Daniel Daley’s writing and singing are.
And that’s regularly the case here. If there’s one part of this entire album that does fare well, it’s Nineteen85’s production. He’s not breaking down any barriers or doing anything experimental (it’s all ripped straight from the 40/Illangelo/Shlohmo/HTDW playbook circa 2011), but it at least sounds *good*. The drum programming on this album is routinely well-done, and the inclusion of a Fairlight CMI (or something that sounds like it) on “In + Out” should win the praise of anyone who’s spent hours researching 80s-era analog synths and samplers. The songs’ production is almost all individually good-to-great, but there’s an unshakable feeling of disjointedness between them. Whether it’s all the rough cut transitions (no song here just fades out, they all basically stop abruptly), or the fact that the songs are ordered horribly, it seems like the project is actively trying to undermine its production.
And let’s talk about track sequencing for a bit. For R&B albums, the order that songs play in has always been integral to the experience. Whether it’s Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On” or, more aptly, The Weeknd’s “House of Balloons,” the songs have served not just as independent structures but as the base for an entire narrative experience. Just listen to how “Loft Music” flows into “The Knowing” or how “High for This” prepares you for the rest of “Balloons.” There’s a certain genius that comes from a well-structured album. And this is where EVERY SINGLE ONE of the aforementioned “artists” fails. There is no creative vision, no cohesion to their work. It’s all just reverbed out chopped and screwed trap music that boasts no originality. The reason why none of these acts have achieved similar success to the Weeknd (not just top 10 on Billboard success, but Grammy and Oscar nomination success) is because they are virtually indistinguishable and fail to distinguish themselves. Sept. 5th is probably one of the worst organized albums I’ve listened to of this style. The first two tracks are filler at best, and the album’s best moments are buried in an overlong midsection. The second to last track, “Angela” is severely out of place, stuck between the 80’s pastiche of “Another One” and the minimalist neo-gospel of “The Line”. “Try / Effortless” probably should have been the first track on the album just based on its potential to engage the listener (it’s not a particularly well written song, but’s at least well produced and well sung).
And The Weeknd is definitely a touchstone for this project. Everything, from the carefully played anonymity to the Drake co-sign to the shadowy late-night vibes of most of these tracks just smacks of Tesfaye’s R&B project. But what makes dvsn so pithy is how hard it tries to create intrigue without merit. The reason people were invested in The Weeknd as a project is because the music was so compelling. Dvsn has four and a half partially-compelling songs. Those songs don’t really make this album worth buying, nor do they elevate this project above any of the folks mentioned in the first paragraph. And to oversell this new “anonymous R&B project” as anything that could rejuvenate or reinvent the game is madness. And there is no beauty behind this madness.
