Sean Sharp's Diary

Laroi embarks on a slow, reflective journey though a breakup with several highs and lows. In a nutshell, the lows boil down to aimless music where several songs feel like interludes into interludes. The high's meanwhile are where the attempts of this album have the stars align. For some reason, this album doesn't feel like it was created with a lot of specific decisions in mind. That's not a bad thing; many artists excel at creating music through this process, and I think it is generally the standard way, especially for new musicians, to produce music. On here, though, it feels like the only decisions they made before creating this album were a few of the artistic styles, like "A PERFECT WORLD" and "THE MOMENT" being more 80s themed. Several of these songs share a very slow stripped-back R&B rhythm, which, duh, makes sense, it's an R&B album, but the ideas are just rehashes of trendy instrumental themes or copies of each other. This leads me to why it does work! Albums with this style of creation, even if they feel aimless, can come out with several good tracks if working with musicians who even hit every once in a while. That is the case here. Starting with the lyrics, I mean, it's a breakup album. Laroi has never hosted a masterclass in songwriting, and while his writing has improved since his teenage years, it's still not at a point where it would be a main draw. His voice has improved significantly over the same time period, and he's finally finding some good consistency with it. I'm sure his moving away from rap has helped, as now he has more opportunities and more pressure to do it right, given the abundance of singing he's doing now compared to then. The production is pretty consistent in terms of style but varies significantly in terms of quality. This album struggles with creating slower, more stripped-down music. It does succeed when it finally tries to build inthroughto something. "THANK GOD", "PRIVATE", and "BACK WHEN YOU WERE MINE" all show this exactly. "THANK GOD" is perhaps the best version of this as the drums build and build throughout, and with Laroi's nice tempo, the lyrics come to a very great ending. It features a glitchy production that doesn't feel like you're in an EDM track, but is appropriate for the style. This is an example of what I wish there was more of here. Not necessarily slow builds, but just more change within each song. "THE MOMENT," for example, has this nice '80s stripped production, but the only memorable part about it is that there is a feature on it. The song has no movement. Laroi is young and has plenty of time to learn and improve. The amount he has changed over the last 5 years is astonishing in its own right. He's not a messiah of music by any means, but I appreciate his dedication and care in creating something new for himself. He is definitely not one to get stuck in a particular musical trend and live there his whole life, at least from what we can tell so far. I would love to continue to listen to what he makes as the songs that do stick the landing, like "A COLD PLAY", deserve the attention.

I see the vision and the vision is nice. The music is ever-changing and constantly evolving into some new creation or beast. Albums like this seem to generally have wide praise when done right but to me I struggle to get behind them in the same way. I can appreciate the way the music waves between instruments and given the theme of the album, it's rather impressive how well this is done. Still though, I can't come to terms with the fact that many of the songs here aren't that interesting to playback and some parts are downright hard to listen to. The flip side is also true, there are many many moments where I wish certain sounds or melodies could be used as an anchor point but instead are never to be seen again. This once again matches being out at sea very well but for my own personal interest in this project, I can't be bothered to listen to some of these 4-6 minute songs just for a specific 20 second part. I can understand the idea from an artist's perspective too. It's not about creating something that people will replay with their friends in the car or bump at a party. It's about expressing an idea in music in such a way that it perfectly encapsules the core idea. Which, to me, is to "idea" focused. To the point where the idea starts to eat itself. So overall, interesting for a listen, but I doubt I would ever listen to this thing unless I got it on vinyl because that album cover is dope as fuck. The vocals and lyrics in this are a bit timid. I don't mean that he writes fearfully, like "oh jeez, will they like this". But more that they aren't a forefront object. The instruments are the big brain of the operation here, and they're flexing. Quadeca's songwriting isn't bad whatsoever and the parts where he does bring his voice more to center stage, like on "THE GREAT BAKUNAWA" and "FORGONE", he sounds great even with these crazy backings. It's a shame that they are back-to-back on this album, as it would break up the album nicely if they were separated a bit more. The instrumentals are the obvious glory. What he has accomplished to do with everything perfectly melding into the next sound is phenomenal, and this is what artists dream about being able to do sonically when transitioning from one part of a song to another. I would dare say that this album is over 50% musical transitions. It feels like there is almost always something changing. Even the sounds that I don't think are that pleasing to the ear are still transitioned well. They fit the soundscape and even the most aggressive noises are brought in with grace. "NATURAL CAUSES" is a slight highlight given it's slightly more memorable brief vocal melody. As a whole though, doesn't drift far from the norm. The real stand out track is "FORGONE". Talk about a beautiful moment. This song alone practically brings this whole hour of waves together. Even at 7 minutes, it's hard to get tired of it. At most, he could have cut off the last minute or two of the song. It reminds me heavily of a modernized version of Simon & Garfunkel or something from that era in that genre.