Lav's Music Corner

Brockhampton are a California via Texas rap group/boy band whose youthful fusion of rap, pop and R&B has become sort of a trademark in the years since their Saturation  trilogy first caught fire in 2017. The last time we heard from the group in 2019 they were exploring a much more somber approach to their sound, but from the singles to this record they projected a return to their idiosyncratic brand of hip hop.  Review By Lav: I've had pretty positive reception to most of what Brockhampton have done. They kicked off their career with Saturation 1 and 2  which scored a 9 and 10 respectively in my reviews and the acclaim returned when Ginger  turned out to be one of my favorite albums of 2019. I was excited to see what the band was going to do next even before I heard the incredible lead single from this album. Now that it's been released in its entirety I'm impressed by both the versatility of the execution on the record, as well as its consistency.  BUZZCUT ...

Blood Orange is the long time project of British R&B singer and songwriter Devonte Hynes. Dev has released four records under the Blood Orange moniker met with varying degrees of critical success and announced the  Angel's Pulse  mixtape just days before its release and dropped it without a single. Review By Lavender: For a long time my opinion caught the ire of many Blood Orange fans when in 2013 his  Cupid Deluxe  record began to turn heads, but I wasn't convinced. Still to this day the record reads to me as an homage to 80s synth pop with a funky/R&B twist, but made by somebody who didn't really understand what made that music so good to begin with. The follow-up  Freetown Sound  was certainly an improvement but I still wasn't head over heels for the sound, especially given how much acclaim the record received upon release. It wasn't until Blood Orange's next release that I finally came around to his sound, as it transitioned into a much s...