BROCKHAMPTON — ROADRUNNER: NEW LIGHT, NEW MACHINE — Album Review
Indie | Hip-Hop | Rap
Listen on Spotify | Listen on Apple Music
Unlike a fair few artists that I have reviewed, I am pleased to have been familiar with BROCKHAMPTON and their music for a fair while. Upon first discovering the hip-hop boy band/collective of artists shortly after the release of SATURATION II, I was both intrigued and amazed by the sheer amount of uniqueness and innovation that BROCKHAMPTON brought to the table. As a result, I would still deem the band’s SATURATION series as a whole as one of the most memorable musical projects of the 2010s.
BROCKHAMPTON had always been a group that I had appreciated as being a highly ambitious and productive force, and would be the most glaring example of a group who embraced the fairly recent wave of releasing frequent projects. That being said, however, their projects still carried a consistent amount of quality.
What eventually did seem like a bit of a red flag for me, however, was how the group seemed to stylistically stay put in the years that closely followed the SATURATION series. The more mellow tone of their following albums iridescence and GINGER seemed to serve as valid examples of this, in which they stylistically didn’t really defy my expectations all that much, despite still being enjoyable records respectively.
With all of that said, I felt that the time had come for BROCKHAMPTON to switch things up slightly, and offer us something that we weren’t quite expecting with their next project. And in the year of 2021, it is safe to say that those prayers were answered.
The teasing towards ROADRUNNER: NEW LIGHT, NEW MACHINE was brought to fans attention in a fairly quickfire manner. With the only two teaser tracks being released in late March and early April of this year, BROCKHAMPTON made sure that following its announcement, ROADRUNNER would arrive to us as swiftly as…well…a roadrunner.
The first of these teaser tracks, titled “BUZZCUT” and featuring none other than Danny Brown, was absolutely fantastic! To say that this tune shed a promising light on things to come feels like a gross understatement. The more dynamic, upbeat, and psychedelic vibe that this track offered felt like exactly what I had been wanting from the band stylistically, for what feels like years. After how much I enjoyed this track, I was holding my hopes high that this would be the kind of aesthetic that the band would continue pursuing with the release of their newest album.
The latter of the teaser tracks “COUNT ON ME” did admittedly feel more like a track that carry all of the familiar BROCKHAMPTON-isms. However, it didn’t take long at all for me to get engrossed in its catchy melody. Besides which, I feel that it works perfectly as the kind of track to excite those who had maybe gotten into BROCKHAMPTON more recently.
Upon browsing through this album’s tracklist, I was thrilled to find that Danny Brown was far from the only exciting feature to be found on ROADRUNNER. Also including the likes of JPEGMAFIA, A$AP Rocky, A$AP Ferg, Charlie Wilson, and more, it felt easy to anticipate that this album will feel energetically abundant, which ROADRUNNER most certainly is.
It feels kind of ironic that this album follows previous projects that were given the names of SATURATION and iridescence, as I feel that this is musically the most colourful BROCKHAMPTON album to date. The production behind this record seems to achieve so many things at once; feeling unique enough to stand out amongst the bands previous albums, carrying that innovative quirk reminiscent of the SATURATION series, complimenting each of the features of each respective track, and even in some cases, sounding like something you’d hear on a Kanye project.
But the amazing production is not the only thing that powers this album’s appeal; there’s also still the vocal attitudes from each of the members, as well as the albums relatable narrative.
The former comes pretty obviously; due to the sheer diversity of members that BROCKHAMPTON has, the band have a tonne of creative freedom to diversify their albums vocally. And while this has rung true with all of their project, I feel that it is best realised and utilised on ROADRUNNER.
On the other hand, the narrative is a fairly straightforward one to understand. But by no means does it detract from the artistic feel, thanks to the amazing writing behind this album. Best put across with “THE LIGHT”, and “THE LIGHT PART II”, this album tackles the struggle to find faith in such a chaotic world, and pointing towards things like the pandemic and racism. It has been a tough time for a lot of people, including myself. And as a result, this album seems to have connected with me a lot more than most projects in 2021.
The only negative critiques I have to offer are extremely minor ones. I felt that there were only a select few tracks that didn’t quite fit with the dynamic and colourful vobe that the majority of the album brought. And while I still feel that “BUZZCUT” still remains the furthest the band has pushed their style out, I was still highly satisfied with how much pure enjoyment they brought. Besides which, I do appreciate that this album seems to balance being unique, and still feeling like a BROCKHAMPTON album really well.
With all this taken into consideration, I am very confident that ROADRUNNER stands as one of, if not the most enjoyable project that BROCKHAMPTON have ever created. It truly feels like the group are on the next chapter of their musical journey, and that prospect is phenomenally exciting.
Favourite Tracks: BUZZCUT | COUNT ON ME | DON’T SHOOT UP THE PARTY | THE LIGHT PT. II
Least Favourite Track: WHAT’S THE OCCASION?
Question Everything | RCA Records | Sony Music
Enjoyment: 10/10 | Memorability: 10/10 | Atmosphere: 9/10
Uniqueness: 9/10 | Satisfaction: 9/10 | Narrative: 9/10
