Dark Lane Demo Tapes - Drake: Review
is a Canadian rapper who really needs no introduction at this point. He ascended to be one of the biggest stars on earth over the course of the last decade and has been keeping his fans fed since his 2018 double album Scorpion. Last year he released a collection of loose end songs that had been up on platforms like YouTube and SoundCloud officially for years. But this time around Dark Lane Demo Tapes is a collection of songs that haven't been officially released, though many of them have appeared as leaks of snippets in one way or another over the past few years.
Review By Lavender:
When it comes to Drake I am in the same boat as most people. He has some great projects and songs but also some pretty mediocre moments, somewhere between the people who refuse to accept his songs no matter how great they can be and those who worship the ground he walks on even when he's at his most mediocre. I didn't have super high expectations going into this as it was clearly labelled as a Demo Tapes project and I got exactly what i anticipated, a mix of decently raw and exciting tracks with some underwritten songs that clearly don't belong on a studio album.
The record's lead single was pretty much an exact prediction of what was to come on the album, as Toosie Slide was a shallow but tolerable song. The track is a prototypical Drake single that is simple and catchy with an effective hook that is destined to be huge on Tik Tok, but doesn't hold up to a ton of repeat listens. The opening song Deep Pockets is a track I can mostly get behind, Drake's delivery is simple but the song is much more about its lyrical content most of which is good. It has a really fuzzed out pulsating backdrop that I think is pretty interesting and gets the record off to an okay start. Losses is the other mostly lowkey song that I think is pretty good. Drake spits some of his most honest and genuinely interesting bars across this track and despite the songs simple beat I find it pretty engaging given what Drake has to say.
Of course there are some slick pop rap tracks spread across this album and its the most consistent group of songs on the record on average. When To Say When is a slick ass track with a catchy beat and some glittery vocal samples paired with a pretty simple percussion pattern. Drake does maintain a pretty samey flow throughout the song for the most part but the song isn't terrible I just wish it has some more diversity. Chicago Freestyle was a song I heard a lot of hype around before I listened to this record and I initially thought when listening to it that it was because Sampha had a feature on the song under another name. I still believe despite what evidence may lay against it that this could be Sampha because he sounds practically identical to whoever is doing this performance. Drake fills out the track with some typical heartbroken lyrics in his usual delivery which makes for one of the more complete songs on the record.
Landed is a fun and bouncy song with a hook that has grown on me quite a lot with consecutive listens. I think it's one of the more memorable songs here with a couple bars that are funny or particularly slick you just kind of have to get used to the songs tendency to hold onto one particular flow. The best song on the entire record in D4L a song that makes me wish Drake, Future and Young Thug would just go crazy on a track more often. The song sees them practically jumping over each other to drop bars on this wild Southside beat and the result is an absolute fucking banger.
The rest of the tracks here didn't really resonate with me for one reason or another starting with Not You Too. The song is a super boring and bland Drake classic in his feelings R&B song. It features a painfully generic beat with some wailing synths and a weak two-step drum hit. Chris Brown does provide some decent background vocals but the song is already too slow and boring for its own good. Time Flies actually has a pretty good beat and a tolerable hook but the verses just absolutely drag the song down until I can barely tolerate it because there is no semblance of momentum. From Florida With Love is the opposite as the song once again has a slick beat and some tolerable verses but falls off a cliff with one of the worst hooks on the entire record. The momentum falls flat on its face and the track never picks up from there.
The record does have a few rough features, mainly Desires which has to be the worst Drake and Future collab I've ever heard, including Grammys. The song is just really badly badly performed and clearly poorly written. Drake pulls out some really fragile singing vocals and Future insists on matching the short awkward flow from the hook and makes the song incredibly aggravating to listen to. The one song everybody was hyped for on this record was Pain 1993 with Playboi Carti. The song itself is actually decent and while Drak definitely tries to mirror Carti's sound he actually manages to out-do him on the song. Carti's verse almost sounds like a caricature of himself and his baby voice and just needs more attention because it is pretty weak and underwritten.
The weirdest point by far on the record is the last two tracks, across both of which Drake is basically trying his best to make a sanitized version of UK drill music, but all the way down to doing a really cringey accent to go along with it. War is a better track than Demons where the accent it a little bit less distracting, neither of the songs are bad but they do make me laugh out loud nearly every time I hear Drake's performance.
Dark Lane Demo Tapes are just what the name implies. These songs don't add up into a complete project but they clearly aren't intended to, and getting songs that have been leaked out in official capacity is always a good idea. Drake isn't operating on a level that is so far above his contemporaries that even his B-Sides are worth hearing and this record is evidence of that. But enough of these songs are worthwhile and engaging in a way that makes me comfortable recommending it to fans both casual and hardcore, just don't expect the record to blow you away with consistency. 5.5/10
Album Cover Review by Tyler Judson:
This cover is really cool. I like the muted colors and the green overcast. There isn't a lot going on and that leads me straight to the eyes in the center. The positioning of the advisory also works well with the minimal composition. 7/10
For more pop rap check out my review of DaBaby's Blame It On Baby here
