Just say meh.
[Video][Website]
[5.33]
Andy Hutchins: Nocando is a spectacularly talented rapper, one of the best battle rappers in the world, and he has been for years. But battle rhyme schemes show their seams when you only have a Project Blowed budget, and the beat and hook both sound chintzy here; this is what happens when an excellent rapper refuses to do the obvious and can’t execute flips beyond the bars.
[5]
Anthony Easton: The prickly outside and the smooth center, the texture working against each other — providing a productive tag team of pleasure and pain — has been done in rap for a very long time, and this is not as formally sado-masochistic as better examples. But the variation in musical signals during the rough bits and the angry spitting that is occasionally implied in Lipherma’s vocals complicate the matter enough that it isn’t just the same old shit.
[7]
Iain Mew: Liphemra’s bit is the standout by far, like if Lana Del Rey’s glamour took an inventive turn further into the nightmarish. Everything else feels a bit musically tame by comparison, even when Nocando gets onto heavy stuff, although the grinding bass synth keeps the shifts from being too jarring.
[6]
Alfred Soto: Trying hard to sound hard. I bet he wears boat shoes without socks.
[2]
Juana Giaimo: Don’t fool yourself by thinking that the minimalist percussion might turn into something like “Cups,” because you won’t need long to be pushed into a deep black pit. Liphemra completes the dark ambience with her slightly perturbing vocals, but it’s a well-known trick that is starting to lose its effect.
[6]
Brad Shoup: Riding a beat Antipop Consortium would send a friendly DM regarding which, Nocando nicks Earl Sweatshirt in ways explicit and intensely implied. The funniest part was getting Liphemra to sing “it is what it is/everything is everything” — twice! He’s got voices, and he coins phrases like the best woozy-headed backpacker. He’s just gotta get it together.
[6]