Ideally, I would have done full reviews for both these projects, but I've been mad busy and going away over the next few days so realistically 'I didn'y have the time' as they would say in Glasgow lol. But I thought both these projects deserved some content, so I thought I'd pull this together and say my opinions on them both. I will end up doing the same thing for the new Nas and Logic records too when I'm back
Isaiah Rashad - The House Is Burning
And this leads me directly on to my first point about The House Is Burning... The choruses were sensational. Helped by the features in certain cases, they were catchy, lyrically they were awesome, and they jelled the bridges, verses and other refrains together really well. This album is so listenable from start to finish back to front. One would describe this album as 'a vibe'.
The highlight of this album for me is True Story - containing my favourite hook, but I tell you what, the hooks on What U Sed, and All Herb aren't too far away from that level either.
This album blends its high energy trappy beats and chilled-out cuts extremely well and Isaiah weaves between the two effortlessly. Isaiah sounds interested, enthusiastic, experimental, lyrical, comfortable and down-right confident. The beat on Lay Wit Ya, oh my dayssss.....
I smell album of the year contention - @kendrick wya
Star Track - True Story
8/5/10
Skepta - All In
So what did I think to it? I think it was a very mixed bag, a small mixed bag, but it was mixed nonetheless.
The first two tracks were easily the most superior tracks here. The Grimey trap blend of Bellator provided an exciting, almost exhilarating backdrop for Skepta to reel off his greazy lyrics - 'used to run his mouth now he can't do that anymore' being one of my favourites.
Then we get to the apex of the album with Peace of Mind, a cool sample kicks off the track, Skepta kind of does this American accent mixed with slight autotune, but I can live with that, then Kid Cudi (a feature not as surprising as initially perceived once you do the maths that Skep featured on Man on the Moon III last year) comes in with classic Cudi vocals. His opening vocals over the sampling gets me every single time. Cudi was my favourite element of this track - I wanted more Cudi. Skepta's hook was fire (apart from the 'honey like Winnie Pooh bar') and he closed out with a verse of his own which was aight. But yeah Cudi was excellent and with the sick instrumental made for a fairly solid song.
Nirvana was a decent track over a jumpy Jae5 beat, but J Balvin unsurprisingly was rapping in Spanish, and he sounded good, the flow was ok but his melodies and cadences were really nice. Ultimately, not being able to understand the lyrics and the content is going to put me off a little bit, but yeah not a bad track overall, because it's not exactly his fault.
Lit Like This didn't really do anything for me and was forgettable. Another Jae5 beat but this one was way more 'bashmenty' but yeah was a bit of a dry song. Hook was boring and his verses weren't a standout moment either.
The final track Eyes On Me signaled a strong finish to the EP. Back on the G-R-I-M-E the instrumental went HAM and so did Skepta. Classic Skepta really, snm.
Star Track - Peace of Mind
6/10
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