Brockhampton is an alternative hip-hop group that touches on a wide variety of music genres. They are one of the most popular groups in hip-hop with their fan base growing by the minute. With the release of the Saturation series and their first album “All American Trash,” they have consistently put out music that an abundance of people enjoys.
Now here comes "Iridescence", the group's fourth studio album. Does it succeed or has Brockhampton taken a couple of steps back?
This album is a good piece of work. From the production to the lyricism, this album definitely had some great songs. “Iridescence” opens up with “New Orleans,” a banger and a really good opener to the album.
“New Orleans” pays homage Lil Wayne’s “Fireman” track, which is really dope since Wayne is from New Orleans. Each artist does a good job on the track from Matt Champion, to the awkwardness of Joba. Both artists showed great collaboration on this song.
Jaden Smith is also on “New Orleans,” doing the chorus with Kevin Abstract and it sounds really good. Overall this song was really good, especially how it transitions to “Thug Life”.
This track’s R&B vibe sounds beautiful, with the artist paying homage to Tupac with the title. This song has a very mellow melody with good vocals from Bearface and the London Community Gospel Choir. Dom McLennon delivers a good verse about his confrontations with depression and how it affects him sometimes.
“Weight” is the most impressive track on the album, with the beat switching at least three times. The beat goes from alternative to R&B to Hip-Hop during this pretty lengthy track. Kevin Abstract starts off on this track talking about the pressure that he feels being in the band. He says that he is “the worst in the boyband.”
Dom takes a similar approach with mentioning that, “My mother called me today / She said she thought she felt my energy a country away / apologized for not calling enough due to weight.” Joba does the outro of the track, talking the about the pain he feels from having the weight of the band on his back. This track displays the storytelling that some of the artists in Brockhampton can do.
“J’ouvert” is another banger that pays homage to the Caribbean Celebration. The production on this track is really dope, with a mix of Hip-Hop and Caribbean music. Joba also brings good energy to the song by rapping in his weird high voice.
This album displays a lot of versatility, but it does have some downfalls that make it a little overbearing. One issue is consistency of the tracks, especially “Where the Cash At,” which feels lackluster.
It has an okay beat, but Joba doesn’t match with the song at all and since he spends half of the track rapping, it doesn’t work.
“San Maracas” has some of the same issues as “Where the Cash At.“ This song is better structured, however the transition from the country genre into hip-hop isn’t that good. The lyricism also doesn’t jump out either.
Overall this is a good album, but it’s by no means their best work. With their lack of consistency and some decent to poor tracks, it feels like a bitter-sweet album. 3.5/5
