X is a music artist who has had moments of greatness but surrounds the question of is he a serious artist or not? His 2 album ‘17’ was one of my favourite of the decade, not because of how much it blew me away in terms of quality and it didn’t even have a lot of substance. It just felt like a perfect album, everything was polished and felt smooth. Since then he has looked much like his original self and a lot like the criticised ‘mumble rappers’. With no serious creativity or quality in their music.
Nether the less coming into this album I didn’t expect anything since all his music from now on will be little scraps which the label are trying to make money from. I was hoping for maybe a catchy melody and a really good feature verse with some solid production. That would satisfy me for some new X music. The label certainly tried this but I was unsure to start with. Just repeating the title of the song over and over again. At parts of the songs I couldn’t even understand what he was saying because he barely opened his mouth. I know he’s been known for doing this did the producer really think it sounded good?
All of the songs were different as we would come to expect from a varied artist like X, but ‘LIMBO’ was one that surprised me. Just before the track played I thought to myself ‘okay killststation might get the best out of him because of his background with X’ and they sure did their thing. This track actually sounded really good to the ear. Definitely a song I want to listen to again. The mix of the soft guitar notes and X’s melody then out of no where, a raspy rock sounding voice and the best keeps stopping and starting for his shouting. I definitely did rate this track and it was a surprise.
The next few tracks were a real dead space on the album. Felt like songs which just were thrown in to make up the numbers but yet it was about 7 of them in a row. Until the song ‘Daemons’ with Joey Badass and Kemba and before this song I’d never have heard of Kemba but Joey Badass I was expecting nothing but the best verse but Kemba blew me away. He had the most clarity out of the 3 and felt confident on the mic and had a good subject to talk about. Technically not the greatest but was very interesting to listen to with his voice changes to express his feelings. Very similar to Kendrick Lamar. X on the other hand had a go at a boom bap style flow but for some reason sounded like he had hit puberty another 5 times with how deep his voice was. Whoever mixed his verse did a very bad job. Overall the track was a meh but Kemba verse was worth the listen.
HEARTEATER and NUMB THE PAIN, were 2 tracks which sounded a lot like my favourite X, just a simple melody but so soft and beautiful to listen to. He just needs an acoustic guitar and he can pull together a hook with ease. It’s amazing and his greatest talent by far.
The final track on this record featured Blink-182 which I can imagine will be the most popular. I’m a big fan of Travis Barker but not the band as a whole. However they did suit X on this song and they blended very well. Travis as always creating an excellent instrumental on the drums. This song on a normal album would be hidden and classed as an average song but it stands out on this record unfortunately because of the lack of good tracks. I can’t be disappointed because of the tragedy that happened. But overall this album is a terrible album. Genuinely just makes no sense and is just the label trying to make money.
Rating: 3/10
Fav Tracks: ITS ALL FADING TO BLACK, LIMBO, numb the pain, Daemons,
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