Review Summary: Curry takes an introspective turn.
Over his prior four full-length releases, South Florida rapper Denzel Curry has been known to rework his sound from album to album. Melt My Eyez See Your Future certainly continues this trend. Whereas 2019's ZUU was a banger-heavy and short release, MMESYF takes a turn to a much more moody and introspective tone as Curry explores both social issues as well as the struggles and hopes he has for himself now that he's turned 26 (which is meaningful since—as he lays out on "X-Wing"—artists like Tupac and Biggie died before reaching that age).
"Melt Session #1" demonstrates this change-up in pace as Curry raps over pensive and moody instrumentation, delivering some of his strongest bars on the album as he explores both childhood trauma (such as the sexual abuse he suffered at age 6) as well as current resolutions he holds for himself ("Conquer thirst, can't revert to who I was at first / I channel God through this verse"). The song "Mental" also continues in this vein, with Curry talking about how he's trying to remain stoic amid the troubles in the world. One of my favorite moments on the album is toward the end of this track, as Curry delivers some lyrics that shed light on how he needs to turn tragedy to art as a musician: "Sampled bomb blast in the Pacific and let it run to the earthquake on the other side, looped it" and, put more simply in the form of alliteration, "Sorrow streamlined into story"
This LP also features a lot of variety and musically creative moments. While I didn't love every song, the album also never got boring for me. "Troubles," featuring T-Pain, is the poppiest track on the record and surprisingly works as Denzel's high-energy rapping contrasts nicely with T-Pain's bright and melodic lines. In stark contrast to this is "Sanjuro," delivering an aggressive and dark tone as the only traditional banger on the album. I also enjoyed the creative decisions on "John Wayne," with gunshots accentuating the feeling of channel-switching during the first 30 seconds of the album before Curry gets into character with a nasally, gravelly, and drawling delivery.
That said, around a third of the tracklist didn't resonate with me as strongly (such as the stretch from "X-Wing" to "The Smell Of Death"). A handful of tracks here were plagued by some corny bars, such as "Zatoichi" ("Life is short / "Like a dwarf" / "F*** the world / "Intercourse") and the more melodic track "The Last" ("The USA is a cold place / Cold world, cold world, we don't even got a North Face"). But as I mentioned, despite these lower points I never felt like the album overstayed its welcome. It had enough highlights scattered throughout to keep me engaged the entire time, and overall I really enjoyed the creativity and storytelling that Curry delivers on this record.
