Lancey Foux — FIRST DEGREE — Album Review
Hip-Hop | Trap
Listen on Spotify | Listen on Apple Music
I initially discovered English rap artist Lancey Foux through his collaboration with Bakar, on the late 2020 song “Poison”. I felt that this track specifically, painted a very innovative picture of Lancey in my mind, thanks to it’s incredibly dreamy and angelic feel. The almost alien-like aesthetic that Lancey portrays, on both this track, and also somewhat his early 2021 single “Steelo Flow”.
Oddly enough, neither of these aforementioned singles make an appearance on Lancey Foux’s newest album FIRST DEGREE, which is an album which definitely threw a curveball directly at me.
Given that I was made aware of Lancey Foux fairly recently, others may know better than me as to whether the aesthetic of FIRST DEGREE was to be expected, in the scope of the artist’s discography. But I can’t help but feel that the whimsical and fantastical feel that powers the most popular of Lancey’s songs up until this point, are somewhere between scarce and non-existent on FIRST DEGREE, an album that I feel really doesn’t fit in well with his previous works, and wasn’t stylistically what I was hoping it would be.
It felt clear to me very early on, that FIRST DEGREE has a very heavy load of Whole Lotta Red influence behind it, to the point where it almost comes across as an attempt at an aesthetic carbon copy of that album. But because I would’ve expected the mood that FIRST DEGREE more from Playboi Carti, or Boy Better Know, way more so than Lancey Foux himself, the bitter pill that is the defiance of my expectation, by default, gave FIRST DEGREE a gravely disappointing aura.
That being said though, there are still some songs on this album, that range from genuinely enjoyable, to engaging just over the point of base tolerance. But looking back on the songs that I actually decided to keep, the ones I removed definitely outnumbered them.
The bulk of songs that I removed, simply felt way too basic, and relied too heavily on the formula of being as accessible as possible, which in this albums case, being as much like Playboi Carti as possible. I’m looking back on what I’ve written so far, and some readers might think I’m some kind of massive Playboi Carti Stan, but what adds insult to injury, is the fact that I wasn’t even that overly impressed with Whole Lotta Red, ultimately making an album like this one, even more dull to me.
And while Lancey Foux does do a pretty praiseworthy job of bringing the energy to backup an album with a gritty undertone like FIRST DEGREE, I would’ve preferred the cosmic sense of ambition that was found in his previous works any day.
Favourite Tracks: DON’T TALK | WHAT U WANT | HONEST
Least Favourite Track: BASED!
Human Resources Records | Universal Music | EMI
Enjoyment: 6/10 | Memorability: 5/10 | Atmosphere: 4/10
Uniqueness: 3/10 | Satisfaction: 3/10 | Narrative: 4/10
