Members Only Vol. 4 - Members Only: Review

Members Only

is a hip hop collective that has consisted of XXXTENTACION, Ski Mask The Slump God, Wifisfuneral, KiD Trunks, Rob Bank$, Flyboy Tarantino and many others through its half a decade run and this is the 4th and potentially final project from the group. Since 2015 they have been dropping groups projects full of distorted trap bangers that solidified the Florida Soundcloud scene. On the back of X's huge hit Look At Me they collective popularized some of its more keynote members and the Vol. 3 edition of their project spawned some underground trap hits. But after the departure of Wifisfuneral, the popularizing of Ski Mask The Slump God and the tragic death of XXXTENTACION, mixed with the lack of singles leading up to this project it was hard to speculate what it may sound like and who it may feature. 

Review By Lav:

My expectations for Vol. 4 were very tempered, after the short and unfinished Skins last year I didn't anticipate much new X music that would floor me. And I was even less excited to hear that the album stylistically makes strides to move in a direction more similar to the music X was making closer to his death, which seems fitting as many of them knew him very well and were rightfully hurt deeply by his passing, but as far as the quality of the music I wasn't thrilled.

The album opens up with Corey's Intro a spoke word retrospective on XXXTENTACION, its a theme that will pop up often, sometimes even in between generic bangers, but the intro sets the projects theme up right from the start. X garners more attention than anyone else in the group and the project is very much a tribute to his legacy and memory. Speaking of X he makes a handful of appearances on this project most of which go over surprisingly well after the strange debacle that was Skins last year.  The only song he completely own is Sause in the first quarter of the record. The track is a short blown out pop-trap tune with copious lyrics about women and partying that could have fit comfortably into X's ? album last year.  The late Jahseh also does chorus work on two of the albums best tracks and most notable highlights Gassed Up and Hi Wendy. Both are banging posse cuts that show off some of the best work from the many members of the group and both contain fantastic hooks from X, the latter of the two may have the catchiest on the entire project. 

His other major contribution comes on Make Eem Run another solid track that features work from Boss Santana and Ski Mask. Speaking of Ski he is surprisingly absent on much of this record, only making appearances on the solid and lowkey track Empty and his own full track where he steals the show with He Diddy another album highlight.  No A majority of this project features work from many of the less popular artists that make up the group and even though there is some gold to be found, it requires some major digging,

About half the album is made up with some rough performances on very underwritten songs from a handful of the other members. The albums first true song is Nothing a hazy and formless trap ballad that expresses some real feelings but with no real alignment of process.  Fell In Love With Death is a similarly forgettable ballad moment. Although not all of the slow jam moments the album has to offer are bad ones, Now Or Never and Cold Whether are back to back solid cuts full of emotional potency and somber lyricism.

But scattered throughout everything we've heard so far are plenty of posse cut bangers featuring any number of MCs from the collective rapping together. The worst of these being the Woah (Freestyle), Radar and Love Hard, Fall Flat tracks that provide no memorable material or really any substance to set them apart from the pack. The next step up would be Plottin, Members Only, Jahseh On My Wrist and You Are Not M.O. all of which feature catchy elements of solid verses but don't do a ton to put it together into a coherent song but help the album have some depth and variety.

Some of the other best moments on the album are tracks like the 2 minute Pick Your Poison an absolute banger capped off by a screamed outro in the only appearance from ikabodVEINS on the project. As well as Crain Xen's Proud Puppy Lover a short but hilarious tribute to dogs, and some other things. And finally Over The Rainbow which sees Kin$oul and company hopping onto a fantastic sample for a series of good verses. And the project is finished off with Rebirth a monologue from XXXTENTACION discussing karma and death in a chilling manner followed by a somber and distant piano outro, the moment is emotionally captivating and a fantastic way to finish off the album. 

Members Only Vol. 4 actually exceeded my expectations, it contains a ton of bright spots and numerous members that I didn't anticipate showing up really brought it. On top of this the more familiar members including X made an impact. That being said this project is still far too inconsistent to be an outright success and some of the misses are huge misses. Like most albums of this nature that talent is not distributed equally among all of its parts and the pieces of this albums wall begin to crack when you pay too much attention to some of the weaker members. But just to accomplish what they did after the state of the collective has changed so much in just two years is a triumph for the group and a solid way to tribute one of their own who was taken from the world too soon. 6.5/10