Kevin Abstract
Blanket
VIDEO STORE/RCA
Kevin Abstract has always gone miles out of his way to make certain that his solo albums have been radically different than those of his recently put-to-bed rap boyband, Brockhampton. Don’t get me wrong—Brockhampton were not, in any way, the usual suspects of boyband-dom. In comparison to NSYNC and New Edition, the collective was far more angular. The same could be said of Abstract’s past solo efforts, each of which sat at the intersection of cerebral rap and Frank Ocean–esque space soul. Following the dissolution of Brockhampton last year, Abstract made it known that he wanted to go for lo-fi guitars blazing as the basis for his new solo sound—a “Sunny Day Real Estate, Nirvana, Modest Mouse type of record”—with the punch of hip-hop.
Blanket, then, is the answer to his loud-soft-loud prayers—a merrily muddled, non-fidelity, wobbly-vocal-FX-filled, grouchy-grunge cupcake iced with a hint of rap’s rugged rhythmic sway. Along with being filled with some of Abstract’s most subtly memorable melodies (the airily light and lovely “What Should I Do?,” the grand elegant “Madonna”), Blanket comes with its share of indie-pop facilitators (MJ Lenderman and Kara Jackson wind their way through the mighty melody of closer “My Friend”), mellow-harshing six-strings (“Real 2 Me,” “Running Out”), and mournful cello-filled balladry (“Heights, Spiders and the Dark”).
To that end, Abstract’s vision of a rap-rock world (which is not necessarily new to him—see 2016’s tough “Papercut,” for example) is more reminiscent of Kid Cudi’s cracked guitar tone and XXXTentacion’s forlorn acoustic mumblings than Modest Mouse, especially on dynamically rich tracks such as “Scream” and “Today I Gave Up.” Yet Abstract’s lyrical vision on Blanket feels more innocently naïve and dewy than his guitar-strewn hip-hop predecessors, like something he dreamed up just yesterday rather than curated and massaged into a cohesive whole. When was the last time you heard of something so organically derived winning such favor within hip-hop, let alone rock? Probably the last Kevin Abstract solo album.
