Yet somehow, even with the now-predictable elements-the unflinching belief that "I been poppin' since my demo bitch" the constant and believable threats that he's going to steal your partner from you ("Told my main bitch to get your main bitch / we gon' fuck your hoe on the low") and his propensity for bringing guns into inappropriate venues ("I just brought an AK to a dinner date")-Future is still making music that follows his signature formula without feeling tired. The WIZRD is a showcase of all the things we've grown to love about Future over the years: expensive-sounding beats, codeine-hued production, and boasts about drugs, women, and the misery Future continues to feel. Jill Krajewskiįuture is like LeBron, in that even when he's not putting out his most mind-blowing performance, you're still going to get a good 30/13/10 stat line out of him. With this big of a ripper from label Little Dipper, it’s clear that PUP are small doggy dogg no more. Stefan Babcock’s songwriting particularly shines, alternating between gutting truths and self-deprecation with lines like "If I can't support the two of us, how can I support a third?” Ballad-meets-headbanger "Scorpion Hill," radio-ready "Sibling Rivalry," and absolute unit "Full Blown Meltdown” especially showcase their growth. Morbid Stuff excels as both escapist mosh pit fuel and reflections on generational anxiety.
#TYLER THE CREATOR FLOWER BOY ZIPPY TV#
Look to their late-night TV debut on Seth Meyers and sold-out shows worldwide: 2019 has been PUP’s year. While their 2013 self-titled debut and 2016 follow-up, The Dream Is Over, cemented their predilection for crushing melodic riffs and gang vocals, Morbid Stuff is where PUP truly meet their potential-while also shoving it in the mud, spitting in its face, and raising the bar higher for themselves and their genre. Toronto punk favorites PUP have come a long way from Topanga, their moniker from their early days. Ducking modern trends, the production is not so much "sunny" as it is "blinding" and it showcases a forward leap in their songwriting chops, bursting with memorable sections, unexpected left-turns, and tasteful maturity… despite all the downright ignorant chainsaw riffage. “Boiled Over” is an instant classic in the death metal canon, a havoc-wreaking giant crushing bones with each lumbering step. From the thundering open notes of the title track, it’s evident that they’ll be pulling no punches. And yet their new effort, Deserted, is all of that. It's hard to imagine anyone being able to deliver-let alone improve upon-the promises of that auspicious debut, one with growls and riffs so furious it felt like an axe flying through the air. With their 2016 debut, Sonoran Depravation, Gatecreeper went from buzzy underground phenom to marquee eyebrow-raiser, soon gracing live stages with old-guard legends like Cannibal Corpse. On Deserted, Gatecreeper grab hold of their destiny, cementing their status as not only the valedictorians of death metal's new class, but one of metal's most promising bands, period.
Maybe you can only fully appreciate beauty after seeing a guy’s gaping, disfigured face, jaw busted in two, on their uncensored album cover. That Pissgrave can find something tender in all the chaos is shocking, but it also makes perfect sense.
But existence is not all horror and contempt: Beauty runs alongside it, and “Rusted Wind” ends on a gorgeous funeral march, like a Viking death ritual. Humiliation is all smattering, impulses, and extremities laid out, absolutely committed to ugliness. It maps how violent impulses and urges can surge even in the calmest of us, how they can seem endless even when change is inevitable and feels incomprehensible to ourselves. Nothing about their second record, Posthumous Humiliation, is remotely approachable-not the lower-than-low barks not the squealing, hardly linear guitar leads not the pounding battery at the start of “Euthanasia.” But Humiliation splays out its ugliest impulses and extremities for all to see, and in that way, it feels lucid.