Review Summary: Quality cloistered in muppetry
It should be no surprise to anyone that 4 years after the release of TESTING, A$AP Rocky has succeeded in doing nothing of note besides going to jail. Because despite the fact his personality and quality comes through consistently on this record, it does seem like he’s being willingly waterboarded with enough codeine to drown a blue whale. If his ego now isn't suspended in some kind of permanent interdimensional astral deluge from all the drugs he’s taken, then he deserves to be congratulated.
In any case, his rapping on this record sounds like effortless freestyling, and bedded into his strongest verses is his trademark lilting flows, riding the beats with ease. At no point does he weigh down the album’s sonic ambition with a slew of moral deliberations or conscious wank, instead he simply just warbles out fatuous bars efficiently.
One of the album’s strongest qualities are the melodies, although some are dangerously close to being annoying. Praise The Lord for example, features a suspiciously happy sounding flute, tittering hi-hats and alternating bass bonks, whilst the rapper men decide to belabour the point of praising the lord ironically in a staccato pocket throughout the whole song. Only A$AP could point out his contemporaries’ iniquities and hypocrisy with such cheekiness, and for it to still sound meaningless. It works as a whole, and yet could just as easily be torture to those with more disgruntled ears.
Most of the features complement or otherwise better the sound of the record, no less than Skepta on the aforementioned song, or FKA Twigs on Fukk Sleep; what would otherwise be a mediocre track. Her falsetto pierces the analog beat and A$AP’s half-asleep malady with angelic authority and one only wishes her influence could’ve been blooded onto more of the album. She offers a contrast that all the other features simply don’t have.
There’s also a lot of redeeming qualities to the production, which is spearheaded by the aptly named Dean Blunt. The overblown bass on the opener sounds like a buzzsaw being dunked in a birdbath of bubblegum. The reversed samples on songs like A$AP Forever and Tony Tone gives them an understated, hypnotic edge, and they are also incidentally the strongest tracks. And speaking of hypnotic, Kids Turned Out Fine is glutted with not only too many drugs, but also these disorientating guitars tracing back and forwards through the same whirring scale. A$AP also has a rare moment of self-revelation on this track; realizing the slew of psychedelics he’s taken might not be that helpful. It certainly isn’t to the quality of the record in any case, as the back half of it resembles a comedown and complete dearth of effort. That isn’t to say Hun43rd or Changes is terrible per se, it’s just they offer nothing in terms of content and detail.
I’ve barely touched the surface on ideas which deserve to be cynically jibbered at. For example, there is so much potential left on the table on a track like Gunz N Butter. The backing vocalwork sounds like it was laid down in half the time it takes to water a cactus. Similarly, the hollowed out vocal refrain on Buck Shots is worthy of a grimace borne out of distaste. Then there’s Brotha Man, which sounds like a dilapidated entree to Tyler the Creator’s abomination, Flower Boy at various points, and moreover is just as worthless. Also whoever thought that ribbiting frog beat on OG Beeper was a good idea, must’ve forgot in that moment what good ideas are.
Yet despite all the ways this album teeters on failing, the mortar of A$AP’s charisma and the bricks of the fever dream production of the first half, hold the holistic experience together against the sewerage of the back half. There’s just enough fat to chew on despite the fact the dish as a whole is undercooked and marinated in indifference.
