ALBUM REVIEW: BROCKHAMPTION – iridescence

By Matt Bandel

The hardest working boy band in the world returns for their fourth full length album. Brockhampton is a southern California rap/art collective made up of rappers, producers, graphic designers and much more. The group prefers to call themselves a boy band, and to quote their leader, Kevin Abstract, “We’re boys and we’re in a band.” The group took the hip-hop world by storm last year with their Saturation trilogy: three albums all with similar styles all released in 2017. Each album was pretty similar to the next, but over the course of the three records, different members got more of a spotlight, and by the end of the year ,listeners had a pretty good idea of all of the musical members’ talents. I knew from the get-go that this album would be very different. So much had changed since the last album. They signed a rumored $15 million record deal with RCA records and kicked out one of the core members, Ameer Vann (his face was literally on the cover of all three Saturation albums), due to sexual assault allegations. Between restructuring the verses to accommodate the loss of Ameer and coming up with a new sound, there was a lot of adjustment that had to be done. And adjust they did.

The largest change is definitely the production. Straight from the opening track “NEW ORLEANS” the band is going for a much different sound. The beats have lost the friendlier, pop/rap atmosphere of the Saturation trilogy. The industrial sound is much colder and creates such a different dynamic. This sound is a fresh change for the band. The boys sound much harsher over these beats.

Not only has the production changed, but Brockhampton has improved and gotten more ambitious. You can see these changes beginning on more adventurous beats in Saturation III on tracks such as “SISTER/NATION” and “BLEACH,” but the transition fully occurs on iridescence. The transition from “NEW ORLEANS” into “THUG LIFE” is so natural that you don’t even realize that they are two different songs. The way the hook from “NEW ORLEANS” is reused on “THUG LIFE” is a super inventive way to blend the two tracks together even further. On “BERLIN,” the beat starts off really cold and mechanical, and then slowly more color is added as the song progresses, completely changing the tone from beginning to end. The song ends with a synth breakdown, but the heavy bass sounds still hit hard, mixing the two different styles in a really great culmination of styles. The way the beat switches not once, but twice, on “WEIGHT” allows Brockhampton to explore three different moods in one song and they all blend together so well. What is easily my favorite moment beat-wise (and maybe moment in general) is on “HONEY.” The song starts off pretty dry and bland, but the beat transitions into a lush synthy track, sampling first Beyonce’s “Dance for You,” and then also sampling “BUMP” off of their first album Saturation. The team behind production, Jabari, Joba, Bearface, and Romil, really did a great job and the production is easily my favorite part.

In comparison, the lyrics and rapping do pale a bit, but that can be forgiven as the album was meant to be more focused on the beats and exploring different soundscapes. There are a couple highlights. Dom is consistently solid all throughout the album. The most elusive member of the boy band, Bearface, has come out to play with some pretty solid rap verses. He was previously stuck to doing a ballad at the end of each album, and he still does some singing, but he sounds great on the hook of “BERLIN” and his short appearances on “NEW ORLEANS” and “DISTRICT” did not go unnoticed.

Matt Champion is a bit lackluster throughout the project. He has no exceptional verses or super witty bars throughout, which is a bit disappointing. Merlyn does a great job and stays fun and fresh, even on songs I don’t particularly enjoy like “J’OUVERT.” He gets his own track to shine, “WHERE THE CASH AT,” where his adlibs and crazed delivery add to the energy of the track well. Joba has also stepped up and has many more rap parts. But as one of my friends described it (very accurately), he often sounds like someone who is just learning to rap.

On the song “J’OUVERT,” Joba gives the worst performance of the album. His breathy delivery (which can also be seen on “TAPE”) slows him down so much that he is off beat. The lyrics are pretty questionable with the rhyme scheme barely existing. I understand that not every bar has to rhyme exactly, but he is just saying words with the same inflection, not choosing words that at least sound like they rhyme. Then he switches his flow so sloppily. If you compare his switch of flow to Dom’s on “NEW ORLEANS,” it demonstrates the difference in rap skill. It really shows that Brockhampton is still transitioning.

Although I ragged on Joba pretty hard, the rest of the album goes pretty well. Lyrically, it would have been more interesting to see the boys dive into their new scenario. So much has changed for them from a $15 million record deal to the departure of one of their key members. They do touch on their newfound wealth, fame, and materialism on “DISTRICT” (which has a killer beat), but I wish they focused more on those topics. The production takes the forefront of the album, which is fine and the production is extremely well done, but lyrically Brockhampton doesn’t touch on any new subjects. They still rap about inner demons and mental health issues, but there’s so much more I wanted them to delve in to.

When this album first dropped, I listened to it over and over, and I couldn’t peg what was so different from the Saturation trilogy. The production was clearly different, and there was obviously no Ameer, but there was something I couldn’t put my finger on. The sticky hooks like on “GOLD,” “GUMMY,” “HOTTIE,” and so many more were gone. This is what was naturally going to happen when the group decided to focus on production and less linear song structure, but it still feels like some personality left. The verses are muffled by the louder production so you actually hear less of members on the tracks. The Saturation albums were much more member-centric and it’s tough to have a layer between the raw emotion that we previously came to grow accustomed to.

Iridescence is different. It’s not bad by any stretch of the imagination. There are for sure rough patches, but it’s actually a really cool and different direction for Brockhampton to go into. But it’s different. I’m excited to have seen the boy band grow so much in just one album. They have been talking of a trilogy, and if they do the same sound and style for three, I hope it doesn’t get stale like the Saturation trilogy did. I am excited to see where the group continues to go (and so is everyone else as the album debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200). This album proves that Brockhampton can change and develop their sound, and I’m sure they will continue to do so over their course as a band.