| 3.5 great | Bedex | September 20th 20 |
Habitual flaws (questionable lyrical tropes, poor track conclusions), newfound strength (great coherent atmosphere), but also some newer mistakes: freeze evolves, but this isn't his final form, I hope. The main issue with the album is that his delivery, while strong and impactful, hardly ever varies. Thus the album quickly fatigues, and songs that in a vacuum or in a playlist would be very strong feel here like they just repeat the same ideas. This is particularly true of tracks 1-10, while the album's last third feels somehow fresher by spacing out his verses, which helps with the 65min runtime. Freeze intelligently brings a lot of feats to the table to freshen things up, but while it sometimes work brilliantly (5,7 in which his own delivery also changes nicely), it is often merely ok (12,13 and frankly 14, which while lmao brings welcome variety), and often really not all that good (9,, the dumb feat on 10 despite a brilliant intro,,16). Instrumentals are the album's strongest point by far, especially in the intros, and every track is good to fantastic on that end - except the slightly dumb start to 2. The album's dark, often piano-led, nocturnal yet hard hitting atmosphere is really nicely laid out and coherent. Highlights include the bookend which are just executed really well, the softer 8 which brings welcome relief, the fantastic more ambient 11, and 12-13 with their amazing vocal tribal ambiences in the background. A great, great sign of evolution, but still a bit of an overshot. 3.5
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| 3.4 great | Erwann S. STAFF | September 11th 20 |
Opening line: "Freeze Rael kicks the beat like Israel". Never change Freeze. The most famous complotist French rapper - he released the album on 9/11 - comes back with another nocturnal and minimalist drill record. That's the main criticism you could say to Freeze: he got one formula right, and he's doing nothing to reinvent himself. However, his niche is so damn hypnotizing it doesn't matter that much. Thanks to great featurings (Alpha Wannnnn) and awful ones (Roi Heenok, you too old for that shit), the record somewhat avoids monotony. It is still dragging at times though, the beats and flows not varying enough for a 1h+ record. Still, when he kicks it he's one of the best French MCs out there. And I'm a sucker for his aesthetic.
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