Flatbush Zombies is a New York hip-hop trio made up of rappers Zombie Juice, Eric Arc Elliot, and Meechy Darko with Arc Elliot also producing all of their music. The group made a huge splash in the music world years ago with their first big song, "Thug Waffle," and then continued to fan the flames with a few EP's and their last mixtape, "Better Off Dead."
Flatbush Zombies have become known for bringing a crazy amount of energy and intensity into their music by mixing some very impressive, flavorful production from Arc Elliot with an insane amount of charisma from all three rappers. Meechy Darko is the most notable, with an incredibly raspy, baritone register that sounds naturally loud and aggressive. Zombie Juice is on the other side of the spectrum with a much higher voice, and Eric Arc Elliot is right in the middle, which allows the group to naturally even themselves out. As far as actual rap ability goes, they are all very talented and are able to come up with great lines, and their deliveries allow them to pass off bad or cheesy lines as funny and entertaining. Needless to say, I think they are pretty good.
Unfortunately, I don't have too much to say about this new album. I thought it was alright, specifically how consistent it was throughout the whole project. Their last mixtape was very good, but they did bounce around from sound to sound, so it was nice to hear something more focused from them. And all three of them are still very on point as far as their rapping and deliveries go, with some great lines sprinkled throughout. Like the line from Meechy on "The Odyssey" about rapping things that make Jesus question religion, and I like Zombie Juice's line on "This Is It" where he says "always was a winner, even when I wasn't supposed to/ The money getting bigger as if it wasn't supposed to." I also kinda laughed at the hook to "R.I.P.C.D." where they talk about the CD music format being dead. With a consistency in overall sound and also the consistency of their rapping and delivery, it only makes sense that the aspect that makes this album average at best is the production.
There's a very spacey vibe to this entire album, and I don't think it meshes well with the very aggressive and vibrant performances from the rappers. The first three tracks are in my opinion the most powerful instrumentals on the album. "The Odyssey" has a heavy bass line paired with a dreary synth and piano part, and "Bounce" has another grooving bass line with a cool guitar riff playing, as well as some really sharp snares. But then we get into tracks like "A Spike Lee Joint," which is just very slow and boring, with these breathy background vocals that almost put me to sleep.
The next 3 tracks: "Fly Away," "Ascension," and "Smoke Break" all have the structure of interludes, and are also three of the most spaced out songs on the whole album. It seems very unnecessary to even have one interlude on such a short 12 track project, let alone 3 all together. The song "Trade-Off" is almost a great song in how it starts off with a dreamy instrumental that sounds like you're just waking up, and then transitioning to a menacing, heavy guitar riff. Unfortunately, the beat doesn't progress much farther from there, and it almost sounds incomplete.
Despite that, I really enjoy the three different hooks on this song. "Good Grief" is another song with a very sparse, spaced beat that doesn't intrigue too much. The singing on this track also happens on a very boring beat switch, and it leaves the two halves being linked very emptily. The album does end on a fairly good note, however, with the closer "Your Favorite Rap Song" with some great performances from everyone and an upbeat, slightly cinematic instrumental.
Overall, I liked this project for the performances and the consistency. I thought there were some pretty great tracks on this thing. The production could've been much more exciting though, and the emptiness and spaciness of the instrumentals end up contrasting too much with the stellar performances from the rappers. I still think that they have plenty of potential to make another album later on down the road that will blow everyone away.
Fav. Tracks: The Odyssey, Bounce, R.I.P.C.D., Trade-Off, Your Favorite Rap Song
Least Fav. Track: Fly Away
