Family Average: 6/7

Look below and see what the family had to say.

Dev Hynes is an ARTIST. This album did not disappoint, as tender and beautiful as ever. The two mystical short tracks in the beginning get you into a heavenly headspace. Great features, especially the track with Joba, that boy is an incredible musician. A fine collaboration, cool to hear him on a track outside of Brockhampton. His collaborations with Tinashe always work for me. A Project Pat feature, on “Gold Teeth,” I’m so for it. Toro y Moi has a wonderful feature too on “Dark & Handsome.” “Benzo” is infectious and stylish. I could not stop listening to it when this first dropped and every time I hear it I just see that video, straight beauty, an artist I told ya. There’s a lot going on in this album and it’s all my favorite things. 

7/7

Dev Hynes is good. Really good. This mixtape is immersive, delicate, and somewhat muted, but still so dreamy. Sonic textures and gooey vocals abound. It drifts, touches on brief moments, themes, and sounds, offering vignettes into Hynes’ mind. It’s abstracted and sort of enigmatic in its brevity. A really lovely and smooth trip through his sonic sketchbook. 

6/7

Angel’s pulse sounds mighty irregular. If I were them I would have it checked out. Most pulses sound like a consistent bumping while this one sounds like an art pop hopping good time. That just can not be healthy. Still they would be hard pressed to find a doctor that would help them. They would just get hypnotized by the sweet siren song of their pulse and be unable to provide a diagnosis. Well I think I beat that joke into the ground. If there is one thing I am good at it’s that. 

Through collage, distortion, and lovely vocals this album has found a place in my heavy rotation. I am ashamed to admit this is actually the first record I heard by this act. Still I would hear their name tossed around often, and I was glad to hear they exceed the hype. I am curious to see where the rest of their discography fits in with this entry.

 Because I did waste a lot of time talking about pulses in the front I want to briefly mention things I liked happening on this record. I constantly go on and on about wanting to hear new things from music I listen to. This is an album that took a lot of disparate musical styles and jammed them together in almost perfect harmony. A feat that I admire a lot. The end result is something that feels fresh, and polished. That's the big thing. Other smaller things that had me hooked would be the majority of the percussion on the album. A lot of what made these strange genres blend well together was the way they wove the percussion between them. The high treble spaghetti guitar was neat too. Okay, thats all I got.

5/7

 This is my first exposure to Dev Hynes and I'm happy to be along for the ride on this unique musical journey with him. A lot of attention to detail on each track especially bringing in just the right voice/artist to collaborate with. I felt as though I was listening to a really great radio station. There was never that moment where I felt like fast forwarding to the next track. The variety of songs just kept me very engaged and wanting for more.

6/7