Brockhampton - SATURATION (I, II, and III)

Though not the most ground-breaking group in terms of musicality, Brockhampton’s huge upsurge in popularity with each release this year has been well deserved. While a lot of bands have a hard time putting together three albums in a decade, Brockhampton have done it in half a year. And while I felt like SATURATION III was a bit of a drop-off, the band has still carpet-bombed the music field, with extraordinary consistency, with a ton of great songs. For each album there are certainly songs I like much more than others, but as complete sets, the albums are all three perfectly enjoyable experiences. I have yet to try to listen to all three in a row, but I think the group’s releasing of the music in installments is meant to discourage any obligation to listen to it all at once.

With something like fourteen members, the group has a lot of creative manpower to draw from, and with each member’s unique personality behind the microphone or on production, the series if full of a wide array of song styles and emotions. Ranging from the unbridled fury and aggression of “HEAT”, which kicks the first album off, to the melancholic musings of “FAKE” and the ballad-y boy band-type crooners like “TEAM” and “SUMMER”, each song is kind of a surprise, though the third album does see the band sounding a little formulaic, but not without their moments of extreme energy. The range of styles the producers in the group are able to cover greatly expand the band’s comfortable emotional territory and just as Kevin Abstract deserves credit for coming up with so many catchy hooks, bearface, Kiko Merley, Romil Hemnani, Q3, and Joba all deserve credit for constructing so many damn tasty beats: “SWEET”, “TRIP”, “BOOGIE”, “FIGHT”, “GUMMY”, so many!

As far as the lyrics go on these albums, most of them aren’t the most poetic, though they often suit the mood of the songs without ever becoming distasteful (a feat somehow hard for a lot of rappers these days it seems). Whether the band want to go aggressive, somber, grateful, or just nutty, they conjure fitting images and feelings appropriate for the instrumental environment they occupy for each session. Because most of the songs feature verses from multiple members, they don’t usually linger on a single subject matter, but the group do a fine job of gelling and creating a certain cohesive atmosphere on each song, even if no one’s rapping about the same experience or imagery. They’re clearly not going for some grand conceptual arching story or anything, but that doesn’t discredit them as unambitious. They play to their strengths and play more as a reflection of their surroundings in large and small scope, using a few sparse vignettes from each member to form the overall mood of each track. With so many rappers resorting to basic, obviously fake boastful lyric trash, still, lately, Brockhampton’s more vulnerable angle on their own unique, but also tangible experiences and mindsets is refreshing. This isn’t to say the band is self-deprecating or submissive; the bars from Kevin Abstract, Matt Champion, and Dom McLennon on the fire-y “JUNKY” feature Kevin resolute in his sexuality and against anyone willing to literally physically attack him for it and Matt Champion delivering a furious, brutal, fiercely threatening verse about respecting women.

I’ll mention one thing about the group I also appreciate: their inclusion of their instrumental producers as explicitly part of the band. The instrumentals are a huge part of what’s helped them get off the ground (and the entire unappreciated foundation of so many other trap rappers’ careers) and honestly the part of their music that I’d speculated about the most leading up to the release of each installment of the trilogy.

While I’m sure the group can’t keep this rate of production up forever, I am excited already to see that they’ve already announced a project for next year after their flat-out manipulative deception with the labeling of SATURATION III as their “last studio album” (suggesting a disbandment) leading up to its release. As for this year, they’ve already left a massive mark for themselves that I hope only encourages them in whatever direction they go. I’d personally be excited to see them take on more meticulously the more progressive and dynamic types of songs that showed up in moments on the third album. And they can certainly take their time too with whatever they’re planning, they’ve given triple what most bands give their fans to digest in one release cycle. I wouldn’t rush them, but I don’t think they need to be rushed; they’re clearly on a hot streak.