Album Review: ROADRUNNER: NEW LIGHT, NEW MACHINE – BROCKHAMPTON

Apr 19

Apr 19 Album Review: ROADRUNNER: NEW LIGHT, NEW MACHINE – BROCKHAMPTON

This week’s album review comes from hip-hop boyband BROCKHAMPTON with their newest album, “ROADRUNNER: NEW LIGHT, NEW MACHINE”, released on April 9th, 2021.

Following their last album “GINGER”, fans patiently awaited this album’s release as the band would often livestream and release snippets and songs over the internet throughout 2020. “GINGER” strayed away from their established high-energy contemporary hip-hop sound from their critically acclaimed “SATURATION” series, so it was hard to know which direction BROCKHAMPTON were going to take their proclaimed penultimate album.

Seeing the features on the first two tracks of the album, the album pointed towards having a more experimental hip-hop sound, as the band brought in alternative hip-hop legend Danny Brown as well as a modern spearhead of the experimental hip-hop sound in JPEGMAFIA.

BROCKHAMPTON delivered on this notion, as the first half of “ROADRUNNER” sounds very modern and much closer to the current state of alternative rap.

However, this trend ends around the half-way point of this album with the track “I’LL TAKE YOU ON” featuring Charlie Wilson. At this point, you can hear more of the sound listeners are used to from BROCKHAMPTON, which by no means is a bad thing, as they take their established sound and polish it. The tracks on the last half of the album bring those sounds, but add a layer of maturity and retrospection to the music and lyrics. The penultimate track of this album, “DEAR LORD”, gives a stark contrast to everything else on the record with a gospel track with great vocals and a nice preparation for the end of the record.

“ROADRUNNER” is a great listen for fans of hip-hop that maybe didn’t love “GINGER” and are doubtful of the talent of BROCKHAMPTON. With a runtime of 46:38, this album is a great reminder of just how good BROCKHAMPTON can be and adds a little bit of sadness knowing that they only plan on releasing one more album later this year.

Check out “ROADRUNNER: NEW LIGHT, NEW MACHINE” here!