Review Summary: Atrocity Exhibition is a masterpiece of emotion
It’s a rare thing to get an album this honest. Sure, there are plenty of good albums that expound on their creator’s experiences and melodrama and triumphs but this is different. Hardly has an artist of any genre in recent memory gone this deep in his music. On
Atrocity Exhibition Danny Brown does an inward contortion, exposing the writhing madness and despondency screaming inside him. A large part of music has always been to connect people, to replicate what it means to be human.
Atrocity Exhibition is Danny Brown’s statement on what it means to be human.
Listening to this album, his statement is often harrowing. It’s his most accomplished effort since
XXX.
The atmosphere on this record is bleak and dreary, full of static surrealism and grimy psychedelia. Delve into the mind of Danny Brown on opener “Downward Spiral” and find that his demons have not quelled but are continuously fueled by drug abuse and depression, the chorus rapped over a melting guitar churning atop Brown’s vocals. In Danny Brown’s world, there are always clear consequences for actions and the dream worlds of drugs and sex hardly ever offer the relief one desired. Yet despite the nightmarish and soul-eating effects of his drug use, there is plenty of hedonism shown in “Lost,” “Golddust” and “White Lines,” although these too have terrifying moments of clarity, brief moments of manic sobriety piercing the madness. What makes his debauchery so shocking to witness is that he’s fully aware of his waning mortality, as seen on “Ain’t It Funny.” Retreating from the world in a copious haze of mind-altering substances is the only way he seems to know how to alleviate the loneliness he feels. Even the soothing “Get Hi” is swathed in an effort to escape harsh realities, if only momentarily.
Atrocity Exhibition has few featured artists because this is definitely a Danny Brown affair. Danny Brown is truly a rapper, in all its definitions. From zany wordplay to the well incorporated samples, nothing on this album is haphazard or coincidental as so many rap albums come across now. There is a real passion for music here. He treats rap as an artform and not industry capital. Every song is meticulously crafted, each showing its creator’s eclectic interests without departing too far out from a cohesive whole. The variety of moods and sonic experimentation continuously propels his emotional narrative further. The opening instrumentation on “Today” sounds sinister, as if you’re skydiving into the void.
His songs on this album are at times chilling, heartbreaking, sometimes unsettling (
Everybody say you got a lot to be proud of / Been high this whole time, don’t realize what I done).
Atrocity Exhibition is exactly what you’d expect a rap album inspired by a Joy Division track to be, an intricate journey past the transformation of human perception and pain as product. I am grateful to Danny Brown for being brave enough to put his pain and sadness out there. Maybe we’ll be better for it; maybe we’ll see him now as more than just persona.
This is a masterpiece.
