On ‘iridescence,’ BROCKHAMPTON Go Interstellar

BROCKHAMPTON is a boy band of contradictions. Among the most explosive underground acts of the last few years, the group’s 12-odd members make hip hop music that’s uncomfortably blunt, evasive, fiery, and intimate. So in a world of increasingly popular indie rap music and playlists — in which emotional rap artists churning out shadowy R&B fusions are rewarded — BROCKHAMPTON’s popularity is all the more confusing. The group commands festivals where college kids scream, “I just want a friend that I can hang out with,” and then mosh over lyrics about Heath Ledger and oral sex. They don’t rap over trap beats, but they’re no Pro Era. Their music can be gratuitously violent and occasionally naive, but they’re no Odd Future. Their collective identity is hard to pin down — partly because it works greatly to their music’s benefit, and partly because they refuse to stick to one.

Even the band’s artistic growth is contradictory. While active since 2015, the group made their name releasing three top-notch albums within the last half of 2017, fittingly titled “SATURATION I,” “II,” and “III” — the first of which was a refreshing and surprisingly emotionally versatile fusion of hip hop, pop, R&B, and even emo elements. On “SATURATION II,” the group somehow got more polished while laying down more aggressive verses over plucked strings and whimsical horns, while on the trilogy’s concluding album, the brightest, poppiest tracks in the group’s discography stood toe to toe with their freakiest sonic experiments yet.

So of course, on “iridescence,” their first major project released after nine turbulent months—which included the departure of tentpole member and rapper Ameer Vann following allegations of sexual assault—BROCKHAMPTON takes their old sound and, in all senses of the word, oversaturates it. The bass is squelching and distorted. The synths are tinny and textured. The flows are more rhythmic than ever — even the album art is a disturbingly blown out negative. And yet the emotion on this BROCKHAMPTON pours out unlike any of their other albums, because, for the first time, the group sacrifices all of their subtlety for overwhelming sincerity. Strings soar and choirs holler. Rappers belt out hooks and the group’s resident singer tells us he’s got his weapon tucked. It’s a whole new world for moody teenager music.

The album’s opening two tracks, which may as well be one given their identical hooks and drums, are a thesis statement of sorts. “NEW ORLEANS,” kicking off the album with bombastic if tedious bass synths and floating ghost choir samples, is the yin to “THUG LIFE”’s yang, with its rich, understated pianos. Rapper Dom McLennon (the group’s best bar-for-bar rapper) drops verses equally confrontational and somber on the respective tracks, speaking to the isolation, paranoia, and euphoria of newfound fame. In doing so, the group brazenly shows their hand — applying their template of contradiction to an updated sound, punctuated by the growing pains of the last year and the momentum of their burgeoning success.

“SOMETHING ABOUT HIM” is where the album truly breaks new ground. A tender and vocoder-ed Kevin Abstract is enamored with his boyfriend among shy synths and muffled percussion — speaking far more in the emotional language of something like Björk’s “Vespertine” than anything the group had approached in the SATURATION trilogy. The track might not feature what one would call a structurally sound song, but it displays a vulnerability that’s refreshing even for BROCKHAMPTON.

This vulnerability makes its most masterful appearance on “WEIGHT,” one of the best examples in their entire catalogue of the group’s various sounds and moods coalescing into something truly stunning. The track first gives us what every BROCKHAMPTON album wouldn’t be complete without — a showstopping Kevin verse reminiscing about youth and the pains of sexual awakening. This time, however, the group is unashamedly emotional — lacing his verse with lush, wistful strings and following it with a monumental chorus. The song develops beautifully phase after phase. It’s on tracks like “WEIGHT” where Ameer’s departure seems like an artistic blessing in disguise. The track is unabashedly pained and lonely — zero percent tough talk, zero percent unearned swagger. Verses by a surprisingly breakbeat and poetic Joba and Dom don’t feel an inch out of place. Joba whimpers the conclusion of the song-ending, snappy refrain. It’s an airtight moment on an album that’s purposefully, though not always satisfyingly, messy with ideas.

This messiness shows up most glaringly when the group, instead of distributing their cornucopia of musical and thematic ideas across the album evenly, overcompensate dazzlingly to make up for tracks that are fundamentally lacking. “SAN MARCOS,” in which a meditative guitar loop and vaguely rueful verses from Matt, Kevin, and Dom only remind listeners how much better this idea was pulled off on “SUNNY” (off “SATURATION II”), is transformed when we’re inexplicably joined by the London Community Gospel Choir and a bar-rock groove to close the song. “FABRIC” is one of the oddest closers to ever appear on a BROCKHAMPTON album, with angry ruminations from Kevin over fuzzy synths transitioning to a Joba verse over plucked guitar, and ending with club-ready kicks, blaring sirens, and pillars of static. What helps is that BROCKHAMPTON seems to be completely aware of when a song is lacking in traditional, let’s-develop-this-song-logically ideas, and so their gratuitous virtuosity often shows up exactly when one is feeling disengaged. On “HONEY,” a so-so set of verses over a nocturnal (if slightly bland) synthpop instrumental is violently tossed overboard two minutes in. In comes a soaring, hair-metal guitar lead. Next a gospel choir with cathedral-reverb. And, of course, Beyoncé — yes, Beyoncé — vocal cuts. BROCKHAMPTON is daring listeners to tell them they’ve lost their minds. Even if they have, there’s enough fun happening to want to stay.

On the original SATURATION, Dom opens an iconic verse on “STAR” by tempting the audience: “I might go Interstellar / I feel like Matthew McConaughey.” On “iridescence,” BROCKHAMPTON take up that challenge. They go interstellar — revising proven formulas, exploring new sonic and lyrical identities, and, like the movie, accompany every stroke of brilliance with moments of meandering, excess, and trite emotion. With magnetic protagonists on a compelling journey, though, “iridescence” is fundamentally unafraid in its ambition to show just how hard it’s trying. Just like the album art, even at its most garish, it’s hard to turn away.