Review: Brockhampton - Ginger, Joe Hawley

While Brockhampton produce some of their best material on GINGER, for every great song there’s a track that’s unfocused and forgettable in equal measure.

A lot has changed since Brockhampton’s breakthrough year in 2017. Their “Saturation Trilogy” saw them receive waves of unfaltering positivity, and it’s no wonder why. While a good review from Anthony Fantano certainly helped raise their profile no end, it was their quirky mix of wild characters, catchy hooks and emotional resonance that gave them a wide-reaching appeal. However, that swaggering devil-may-care attitude swiftly subsided in the light of two career-defining moments; their signing to RCA records and the exodus of bandmate Ameer Vann. One would have thought that enough had been said about Ameer at this point, and most fans seem to have moved on. Brockhampton have not.

There are points on this album where it seems that Brockhampton are in danger of being defined by their setbacks, and it’s certainly quashed the swashbuckling attitude of their 2017 records. There are only one or two songs that offer respite from the constant melancholy that sweeps through most of GINGER. A song like ‘STAR’ or ‘SWEET’, from Saturation I and II respectively, would have been a welcome addition, as none of the songs on this record ooze with the endearing self-confidence that could be seen on albums gone by, and this absence is hard to ignore.

Now it might be suggested that Brockhampton are facing the age-old problem of expectation. For example, after releasing three albums in one year, sites like Pitchfork are now labelling the 11 month wait for this album a ‘brief hiatus’, when a wait of this length is deemed perfectly normal for other artists. Comparisons to the “Saturation Trilogy” may also seem unfair; how can you expect Brockhampton to make another Saturation album when they are at a completely different time in their lives? The point is not that fans wanted GINGER to be “Saturation IV”,

but that those things that made Brockhampton such an enjoyable listen have now been smothered in often cheerless expositions of personal struggles. With no let up.

It’s clear however that this is all very deliberate. On ‘HEAVEN BELONGS TO YOU’, Slowthai opens with the line “immerse myself in discontent … it smells like ginger”, pairing the title of the album with a clear sense of despondency. Then, on the title track, Matt Champion raps, “I don’t even love no more, I don’t even trust no more”. GINGER is not supposed to strut through your headphones with the confidence of a Saturation album. Instead, the album feels like a support group, with Brockhampton sitting in a town hall, somewhere in LA, talking through their struggles with only themselves for company. A select few are welcomed into the group, with Slowthai and Victor Roberts II being the two most notable inclusions. Slowthai’s feature was not him at his best, but he fit into the ebb of the album well, while Victor Roberts II stole the limelight on the album’s closer. Rapping over an emotive piano line, a formerly unknown voice tells a fantastically crafted tail of family and betrayal with the confidence of a rap veteran. Surely there is more to come from Victor.

Despite the relentlessly heavy topics on display, Brockhampton do produce some fantastic and beautifully crafted songs on GINGER. The opener, ‘NO HALO’, is a perfect Brockhampton song. Each verse fits seamlessly over the squeakyclean production, and there is great group chemistry as the band rally in defiance against their individual struggles. Each band member provides a quality verse, with Merlyn showing his versatility in a beautifully low key performance. ‘DEARLY DEPARTED’ is another fantastic song. Although it re-treads some old ground around the Ameer exodus, it also explores dealing with fame and the death of a grandparent. However, it’s the instrumental that makes this song so special, along 35

with the raw emotion in the voices of Kevin, Matt and Dom. ‘SUGAR’ and ‘GINGER’ are two more great tracks, but as good as all these songs are, they are dispersed amongst songs which are forgettable and unfocused. The two biggest offenders are ‘I BEEN BORN AGAIN’ and ‘LOVE ME FOR LIFE’, which are just poorly constructed; one member raps after the next with no unifying hook or ideas. It’s hard to remember anything about these tracks, which is really all that needs to be said.

One of the key issues with GINGER is that, although it’s easy to take issue with Brockhampton’s cheerlessness at times, the album’s most mediocre songs come when they try and aim for a more braggadocious or upbeat flavour. The couple of tracks where they shift their focus away from personal struggles lack any sense of character. ‘ST. PERCY’, for example, is supposed to be a confident statement on the band’s work ethic and success, but once again just ends up being album fodder for all intents and purposes. The beat is stripped back to the point of redundancy, with the odd sample included after the first verse appearing like an exercise in showing off production skills as opposed to building a well-constructed song. That said, GINGER is far from a bad album. In fact, it shows some promising signs for future projects, with Merlyn and JOBA showing more versatility than ever, and producers Romil and Jabari putting together some truly fantastic instrumentals. However, the boyband seems to be in a confused headspace right now, with Kevin Abstract even admitting, in a now officially deleted voice memo, that he’s releasing music out of an obligation to RCA records as opposed to out of joy, and that this is going to cause “messy albums, unfinished thoughts, unpolished thoughts”. He’s not wrong, GINGER is unpolished and a bit messy, but it does have some stand out moments that give grounds for optimism; as time moves on, and with the shadow of Ameer Vann and the weight of expectation from the “Saturation Trilogy” fading, there’s hope that the best of Brockhampton may still be to come.