by Luke McGoldrick
3/5
BROCKHAMPTON’s latest album iridescence is a mix of hard hip-hop, catchy hooks and wailing boy band vocals. It’s a pretty good album with probably some of the most heartfelt material the band has to offer. There is a lot of anger and sorrow on iridescence, which is not surprising given the recent controversy surrounding some of the band members. Full of lyrics that deal with self-reflection and facing up inner demons, it is clear that the band went through an emotional journey while working on this project. At the same time, they never shy away from going hard on a beat and spitting some fire.
The album opens with the explosive track ‘NEW ORLEANS’, which shows off their rhyming talents and also features a surprise appearance from Jaden Smith. The production is impressive too: the album has an industrial hip hop feel to it with really aggressive rapping on some tracks. On ‘DISTRICT’ there is actually some full on yelling. Others are softer and sweeter, with quite moving lyrics, and you can feel the tender side of this album in just a few lines from a chorus. There are nice change-ups in tracks like ‘WEIGHT’ which switches to a fast, UK garage-type beat before coming back down again for the next verse. One of the last tracks on the album, ‘SAN MARCOS’, features the London Community Gospel Choir who come in to sing the chorus line “I want more out of life than this.” It is a line that sums up what the band are going through and, although it is not the end, it seems like the perfect conclusion to an album about moving on from the past.
‘NEW ORLEANS’, from ‘iridescence’:
