Brockhampton — iridescence ANALYSIS & REVIEW
Published 09/27/2018
The general sonic style that this album protrudes is perhaps its biggest pull and what separates it from works of similar focus and techniques, i.e. the rap world. It was obvious that the music was built on the foundation of sounding emotionally charged and unique through multiple different and surprising facets in each song, from the rather free and expressive spoken vocals to the diverse beat dynamics and heavier reliance on acoustic instruments than perhaps expected given the general atmosphere. Top that off with heavy synthetic manipulation to create sounds not normally heard, and you have a timbre that’s at least interesting at most times. This group did well at infusing a mix of recognizable and impactful timbral ideas into the basic rap structure, such as nice harmonic deliverance from string quartets, strong piano presence, and lopping/phasing synth effects to bolster the ambience and feeling of pull.
Now, I thought they could have gone much father in just about every experimental sonic decision made, as the instrumentation was neat but ended up simply adding a different coat of paint rather than completely rearranging the setting. The timbre continually stayed as the large piece of decoration to a structure of spoken word, drum machine, and bass movement that is all too obvious and predictable. Ultimately, the sound did well to accentuate mood and give a needed sense of development and drive, especially when keeping textures thin and beats at the center, such in the songs “New Orleans” and “Vivid”. I appreciated the variety of soundscapes found here, yet nothing ever went the extra mile to completely distort expectations.
Apart from the focus and general success on poignant instrumental ideas, nothing else here is really worth a whole lot of praise. Sure, there was some far-fetched and extravagant harmonic noodling when piano was featured, however “noodling” is just about all it did on the track, as chordal foundations here hardly gave enough of a platform or connection to the other layers of pitch when present, which left out an entire aspect of potential creativity and inspiration. In this atmosphere of attempted timbral experimentation and spotlights on the beat and the solo voice, I actually preferred the times where more pedal tone and static harmony was employed, which was about half of the work.
However, that came at a cost, too: even in staying on one chord, or even one note, the harmonic layer still became rather frilly and weak due to unnecessary added tones that cluttered the background but weren’t creating a real linear idea. Either have a succinct countermelody or leave it at a solid color and let other layers build off of it. This is really describing the possible jump from good to great — these harmonies were still pretty good. Neat language, nice appropriate use of pedal tones, and even in the multiple phrase repetitions, no redundancy in progression ever felt too meaningless or tasteless.
The album’s main weakness is in the melodic rhythm. Despite attempting to channel multiple personalities, ideas, and talents into a cohesive work of music, the collective blunder of being unable to deliver the lyrics with a consistent amount of personality or drive to match its surroundings was the one glaring negative. Luckily, with the music indeed having a multi-dimensional sense with its timbral roles and unordinary musical form, this misstep in melody was less egregious then, perhaps, a run-of-the-mill modern rap album. Also, it wasn’t all dull, as songs like “Tape” and “Honey” made important strides in injecting life through strong vocal metric accents and giving a more rhythmically diverse motive to fly above the texture. It simply wasn’t present all the way through, or even most of the way, with songs like “Where the Cash At”, “Weight”, and Toyota” serving as rhythmic pace cars to slow everything down to a basic, rudimentary feel. Everything came crashing down in the worst song on the album, “San Marcos”, which along with completely shapeless solo vocals settled into a rather disgraceful three chord progression and, sonically, turned against everything interesting that had gone before by use of extensive auto-tune and twangy guitar.
The lack of cohesion on this album wasn’t bothersome; it just showed that some in the collective were more talented than others on the mic and some feelings, namely the more basic ones such as upright energy, were more easily and convincingly achieved than their more complex ambitions. I’d recommend it to those who fully jive with any facet of rap; otherwise, it’s not that big of a deal.
