STOP STARING AT THE SHADOWS - $uicideboy$: Review
are a New Orleans based underground hip hop duo who have developed a cult following off of SoundCloud mixtapes full of self-produced lo-fi beats and a harsh extreme rap style. They were incredibly prolific throughout the 2010's but Shadows is the duo's first release of 2020 and first since a collaborative EP with Blink 182's Travis Barker last year.
Review By Lavender:
The longer time was put between some of my favorite of the Kill Yourself series of singles the less I enjoyed the boys new releases. That was until 2018's I Want To Die In New Orleans my favorite of their full length projects so far and an album that saw the duo blending their sound with some new and refreshing angles. And after I gave a very harsh review to their cosplay nu metal EP last year I was expecting misguided experiments to be the downfall of any new $uicideboy$ music that I didn't like. But on Stop Staring At The Shadows the biggest offense is surprisingly boredom.
Seeing that this record was marketed as an album and not a mixtape I was disappointed to see the record clock in at under 25 minutes, and even more disappointed to see how effortless and soundalike so much of the album feels. The record gets off to a rough start to put it lightly. All Dogs Go To Heaven is a track that feels like it wasn't mixed at all, everything is so muddy that no part of it really has an edge to it, and barely being able to hear the bars makes the whole song one big auditory slop. The beat is actually not bad but it gets kind of lost in the headache inducing mess. I Wanna Be Romanticized is a track you could pass off as a Lil Peep tune but instead of his emotion soaked performance this track is delivered in completely emotionless understated vocals that leave me scathing my head as to what the point is.
MEGA ZEPH has some ambitious attempts at genre blending but ultimately nothing really sticks as its all so disjointed no part of it can really get any footing. This Just Isn't Empirically Possible is a great song title but that's about all its got. The song's instrumental shares a sample with Madlib's beat for Thuggin which is immediately apparent and sets a high standard for the song out of the gate. Some of the shouted refrains in the beginning of the song are catchy but there is absolutely no structure to it whatsoever and by the time it ends I'm once again not sure what the point of its inclusion was. What The Fuck Is Happening is a joke that writes itself but I'll say it anyway, what the fuck is happening with the mix on this song?
Bizarro opens up with one of the worst refrains on the entire record I guess you could consider it a hook but it is so nauseating it really contains nothing of the sort. Once you get past it the song is okay but boy does it feel like so much longer than just 3 minutes. Scope Set is another example of a track where I just can't hear anything clearly enough to appreciate it even though it has some catchy elements. And finally the closing track ..And To Those I Love, Thanks For Sticking Around is another example of the recent trap trend that sounds as much like pop punk as it does southern hip hop and this isn't a particularly good example of it.
Despite the records many problems the duo's creativity definitely shines a handful of times here and the album has highlights. One Last Look At The Damage has some incredibly tight verses that don't suffer any mixing problems at all. The half singing half rapping is actually pretty compelling and I think the song is a great catchy highlight. whispers indistinctly reminds me so much of an Injury Rserve track is almost every element and while I think the song deserved a little bit of a wilder instrumental aside from that it is very solid. Putrid Pride is a short but infectious track that is bright and catchy and sticks out among the muddy tracklist. Finally Fuck Your Culture is a genuinely hard-hitting song that I actually find myself enjoying and I wish more of the record sounded like this.
Bizarro opens up with one of the worst refrains on the entire record I guess you could consider it a hook but it is so nauseating it really contains nothing of the sort. Once you get past it the song is okay but boy does it feel like so much longer than just 3 minutes. Scope Set is another example of a track where I just can't hear anything clearly enough to appreciate it even though it has some catchy elements. And finally the closing track ..And To Those I Love, Thanks For Sticking Around is another example of the recent trap trend that sounds as much like pop punk as it does southern hip hop and this isn't a particularly good example of it.
Despite the records many problems the duo's creativity definitely shines a handful of times here and the album has highlights. One Last Look At The Damage has some incredibly tight verses that don't suffer any mixing problems at all. The half singing half rapping is actually pretty compelling and I think the song is a great catchy highlight. whispers indistinctly reminds me so much of an Injury Rserve track is almost every element and while I think the song deserved a little bit of a wilder instrumental aside from that it is very solid. Putrid Pride is a short but infectious track that is bright and catchy and sticks out among the muddy tracklist. Finally Fuck Your Culture is a genuinely hard-hitting song that I actually find myself enjoying and I wish more of the record sounded like this.
STOP STARING AT THE SHADOWS isn't terrible and there is plenty here that will satisfy long time fans of the duo. That being said the biggest issues the record has are technical, the messy sound collages that have always been essential to the bands music have never sounded more flat and underwhelming than they do here. It begs the question as to whether they can carry on with the creativity their music used to be soaked in if they continue to make music so muddy on the production side that you can barely hear any of it. 4/10
