Impressive!
[Video][Website]
[7.00]
Thomas Inskeep: If Tricky were a) agender + b) more of a rapper + c) making 1998 Tricky records in 2015 = “Impossible,” a dark, sharp-edged, fairly perfect non-mainstream hip-hop record. “I’m a junkie for fuckin’ semantics,” Angel Haze raps, and thank goodness; they epitomize the phrase “spitting fire.”
[9]
Jonathan Bradley: It’s a rapper’s beat, clattering and unpretty, and what Haze does over it is certainly rapping. Competent rapping, even. “I open my third eye and the view is amazing” is a good couplet; better is the fierce “middle finger up to white America.” As a freestyle, it would be worth sharing. As a single, it’s perfunctory.
[4]
Alex Ostroff: Angel’s released better pop singles — “New York,” “Werkin’ Girls,” and “Echelon” for example — but after Dirty Gold often filed their edges off, it’s a rush to hear them tearing into the beat, rising from the thorns and refusing to be whitewashed. Mixtape Haze is back and they’re a junkie for fucking semantics. Babe Ruthless, indeed.
[8]
David Sheffieck: Angel Haze is hard to pin down, from the fierceness of their early mixtapes to the compromised execution of their major label debut to the rash of stripped-down Soundcloud cover songs that followed it. But it remains fascinating listening to them explore new avenues: Haze at their best has a blend of technical ability and passionate delivery that makes their flow like no one else I’ve heard. “Impossible” finds Haze in fighter pilot mode: precise, thrilling, approaching supersonic speed. “I blew up the game,” they say, and it’s easy to believe they could.
[8]
Alfred Soto: Not great Angel Haze but good enough: the martial beats signify their commitment to agitprop and to a rage that their craft struggles to contain. The best line after the one about suicide: “Man this shit’s a problem, man this shit’s a problem, man.”
[7]
Katherine St Asaph: Angel Haze has yet to release anything bad — even the Sia collaboration was fine — and the militarized beat is quite the reminder. But some tracks are grenades, others just prime them.
[6]