I’ll be one of the few people to tell you that I am a major BROCKHAMPTON fan, having been a supporter of the American boyband since their early days of the SATURATION Trilogy in 2017. Matter of fact, I’m that big of a fan that I’ve collected all of their official vinyl (Iridescence and Roadrunner: New Light, New Machine) and bits of merch from their final tour they performed in the UK at O2 Brixton Academy, and even their very own merch from Nick Holiday’s fashion label “Holiday”. BROCKHAMPTON has clearly been one of the best hip-hop groups to come out of the industry in the past few years, showing influence in their work from rap collectives like Odd Future and the Wu-Tang Clan. This being their final ever album brought much emotion to me when listening to it as it didn’t sound right it being their last album ever to me, specifically because it just felt like a solo album by Ian Simpson/Kevin Abstract.
Minus the one or two moments by Ciaran McDonald – professionally known as Bearface – The Family is entirely just Kevin Abstract, sounding aggressive and emotional through the 35 minutes of their final hours making it feel like he’s trying to highlight how he was the main member of the group and the real reason for the band’s success. However, this doesn’t ruin the experience for me, as hearing new but final material from the band made me excited to see what the others have in store for their solo careers. On many of these tracks, it feels as if Kevin is trying to get everything off his chest about the band’s infinite hiatus that they announced the beginning of this year, but confirmed that it would occur at some point last year after the release of their 6th studio album.
The best thing about this album is that it sounds like nothing ever heard before lyrically, with parts sounding as if it was Kevin showing his anger towards the band but also showing so much love for the other 12 members of BROCKHAMPTON, just like they all did on the unreleased song ‘LAMB’, which was put onto their SATURATION boxset with demos of many songs they officially released but also other bonus tracks.
Just on the first listen, I instantly fell in love with the entire concept and honestly nearly teared up after listening to final track ‘Brockhampton‘ as well as ‘Prayer‘; from Kevin rapping about his love/hate relationship with California to his highs and lows with Jabari, it is clear that they’ve come a long way since 2010 when they first formed on a Kanye West fan website.
One of my favourite tracks from The Family is ‘The Ending’, which is very reticent of Kanye West’s Late Registration’s production. Aside from the outstanding instrumental, Kevin illustrates us with such a level of calmness whilst also showing his anger to this end of an era. Furthermore, the first single they released for this album titled ‘Big Pussy‘ gave me chills with the beat switches in between, as well as the introduction to the song which reminded me of Black Midi with the very enthusiastic jazz sample. Bearface and Boylife (who are both executive producers on this album) made great selections of samples to use for this farewell.
Overall, it doesn’t feel right calling this an end to BROCKHAMPTON, but rather a new beginning to Kevin’s solo work. However, as of the time I’m writing this review, the group have done the unimaginable and dropped another album the next day, titled TM. Executively produced by Matt Champion himself, BROCKHAMPTON have released an album nothing like their other work in their discography, creating songs that make it sound like cuts that didn’t make it to Yeezus by Kanye West. It’s clear that each member put their heart and soul into this actual final album, and wanted fans to have a proper send off to the last 12 years of music they’ve been making. However, the result of this was not what their fans had in mind.
After my third listen of TM, I would have to rank this last in their discography, whilst The Family is creeping into my top 5 from them. However, this isn’t necessarily limitation, as TM does contain some highlights, splitting it into two sides with the first 6 tracks being energetic and dynamic. The opener ‘FMG’ starts off pretty promising, but the mixing and vocals – not just on this track – don’t really have much clarity to them. With the second half of the album though, it felt like the band was trying to make a 2000s N-Sync type album, which was difficult to listen to trying to actually figure out who is singing with these high pitch melodies – especially on the track ‘MAN ON THE MOON’. The final track, ‘GOODBYE’, is easily one of the worst tracks the group has ever come up with, which doesn’t even feel right saying that term as saying they’ve come up with it insinuates a little bit more effort than what has clearly gone into this track – they are obviously submitting it just to finally get out of their record deal with RCA.
Since 2017, BROCKHAMPTON has been a massive part of my adolescence and many other experiences – I’ve discovered new waves of sound through their music and have gone on to discover music that wouldn’t be noticed by the mainstream media if it wasn’t for them, including artists like Deb Never who can be heard on ‘NO HALO’, plus the British rapper Slowthai who was featured on their song ‘HEAVEN BELONGS TO YOU’. I’m very glad to have seen them perform in London earlier this year for their last ever show where they played all their greatest hits all the way from SATURATION to Roadrunner: New Light, New Machine; this was my first proper concert so I cherish that night with so much love. It has been an amazing ride listening to BROCKHAMPTON, however, it didn’t end on a beautiful note than what I wished for, making it a big disappointment for me with TM. On the contrary though, I am excited to see what they all have in store in the future, if that includes music, fashion or whatever they all get up to after now – farewell to the best boyband since One Direction.
The Family – 8/10
TM – 4/10
