Release Date: Sep 21, 2018
Genre(s): Rap
Record label: RCA
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The allure of BROCKHAMPTON is obvious. It's something we all truly wanted - a diverse group of like-minded friends, coming together to create amazing music and, most of all, have fun. The fun turned serious in 2018, when the self-confessed boyband became a record-making machine, churning out three albums, The Saturation Trilogy, in the space of months.
Is you dancin all alone? Is you dancin for someone? iridescence is the best Brockhampton album because it doesn't give a fuck what you think a Brockhampton album should sound like. If you're rolling your eyes at that statement then you're doing this shit right, and you've got one up on me; it took me until Merlyn's "PULL UP TO YA HOUSE AND DUMP LIKE THE TRASH MAN" to acquaint myself with the level of ridiculousness this album operates on, but once I did the thermals dissolved into normal colour and iridescence became really simple. That's all this is actually, Brockhampton's simplest album, a choose-your-own-adventure funhouse where the experience is as hilarious or as touching as the mindset you go in with.
The Lowdown: Last year, BROCKHAMPTON released a trilogy of albums all called Saturation. Each record in the series improved on the one before it, and together they won the 13-man band a new legion of fans and a $15 million record deal with RCA. Iridescence is their major label debut, and it doesn't disappoint. The album (and really the whole musical collective) is led by Kevin Abstract.
Iridescence trades the Southern trap palette of 2017 LP trilogy Saturation for a more abstract, yet expansive splatter of futurist techno-trap. Recorded over a 10-day span at Abbey Road Studios with a full choir and orchestra, the fourth album from the Texas collective erases the memory of departed MC Ameer Vann in 15 tracks. Opener "New Orleans" triumphantly announces a new sonic direction with its explosion of blown-out 808s and revving synths.
Continuing the meteoric rise started in 2017 with their Saturation trilogy, California boy band crew Brockhampton returned with chart-topping fourth effort Iridescence. Less playful and more focused, Iridescence is a declarative moment for the group, delivering on the steadily evolving promise of the Saturation series with thoughtful introspection and their typically genre-blurring sound fusion. Incorporating soulful R&B reflections, raucous hip-hop energy, grime grit, and aggressive electronic production, the set bursts with ideas.
In 'Iridescence', Brockhampton find their own truthful rebirth. And, regrouped and renewed, they're not going anywhere Iridescence is the physical phenomenon of a surface appearing to magically change colour thanks to everyone's favourite prankster, light. It's the reason soap bubbles and splodges of petroleum look like purpley-green puddles of prettiness; the logical explanation behind certain animals seeming to shimmer with colour.
The rise of California-based rap group Brockhampton has been both incredible and tumultuous. Considering their debut album 'Saturation' was released only 15 months ago, the story of the self-described 'boyband' is as eventful as some careers that have been going a decade or more. Their fourth album 'Iridescence' finds them at a tipping point, on the verge of becoming a bonafide mainstream sensation, with early reports suggesting this project could top the US Billboard chart.
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