Review Summary: Praise God, Hallelujah! I'm still depressed!
On paper, Brockhampton shouldn’t work. A collective of diverse kids who met online wanting to go in all directions at once. Visual art. Film. And music. All under the name Brockhampton. And to tell you the truth, it’s a big f
ucking mess. No one song is stylistically consistent all the way through, no one video tells a coherent narrative. Not even the verses mesh together logically most of the time, only strung together by the thinnest of connections. “Iridescence” is just this musical quilt of anything they could find, incorporating, pop, RnB, alternative, Hip-hop. But you know that. By this time, we’re familiar with the music. We’re familiar with the concepts. We all know that logically, Brockhampton should not work. There are too many factors at play. And yet, the everything just f
ucking
works. There are moments of pure genius all over this 48-minute experience when everything all comes together and it kicks you in the chest down the street. There’re lines here that I want to scream at the next show, bouncing with the crowd. There are parts of the album that I’ll rewind over and over just to hear the same 30 second snippet for that perfect moment. Words that I’ll fantasize getting tattooed on my skin, but in reality will just make my Instagram bio. I can’t get over some of these songs. Without my permission, they’re writing themselves into my DNA. Or maybe It’s without my being aware.
We know the names. We know the faces. Joba. Kevin. Dom. Matt. Cieran. Merlyn. We know who they are. They kicked out a close friend because they found out he was an awful human being. But we don’t know who they
really are. To be honest, we don’t need to know. They owe us nothing. But they still gift us this music. Truth is, I’m jealous of them. They have this tight friendship with each other that I’ve never had and probably will never have. All I can do is live vicariously through them. Letting people who I probably will never will meet articulate feelings I didn’t know I have, buried under bravado and sex and fame and parties and friendship that I’ll never experience. I know we’re supposed to be objective with reviewing, but sometimes, that sh
it just ain’t possible. Because sometimes there are albums that’ll come around and make you feel all of the feelings, and you can’t control which albums will do that. Taste is subjective. The only objective thing about music is that it touches everyone. I did not expect to need, let alone love this album. Because if you look at everything added together, the very concept of Brockhampton, and by extension “Iridescence,” is a total f
ucking mess. But I’m a mess too. So it f
ucking works. The last line of the album is “I feel you”. Those three words hit me the hardest. Because for that short 48 minutes, I only felt them. I felt, for once in my life, included.
