Hi, everyone. Scrampthony Damptano here, the internet's busiest music nerd. It's time for a review of this new 2hollis album, star.

Yes, here we have the latest LP from songwriter, rapper, singer, producer, Hollis Frazier-Herndon, aka 2hollis. A Chicago native who has been at the center of a lot of buzz in the internet music scene as of late. His recent growth is certainly proof that a persistent grind and a careful attention toward what is popular and trendy at the moment can pay off.

At this point, he's been releasing and recording music for years, originally building his catalog under the name Drippy Soup, but then eventually moving on to the 2hollis name. By the time he was dropping releases that would put him on the map like White Tiger in 2022. When trying that album out along with the more impressive Boy from 2024, I felt that the most impressive thing about 2hollis's output so far was just the range. Even in the lead up to this new LP here, 2hollis was dropping a pretty varied array of singles that had me wondering where the heck he was going to go next.

Most recently, you had the swagged out club friendly hifey pop rap banger which was "Style". There was also "Afraid" with Nate Sib, which saw things going in much more of an electropop direction. He also dropped one of his most well received singles so far toward the end of last year, "Gold", a track that saw Hollis doing his thing with a mix of relaxed and shouty flows over a very aggressive, distorted, rage type instrumental, eventually switching things up at the last second with a surprise hard style outro.

What's funny about all of these tracks that are all over the place is that none of them are even on this album. Star is its own thing entirely and simultaneously serves as Hollis's major label debut, as every record he's dropped up until this point has been an independent release.

Given that, this record has pretty massive potential to be a big exposure point for Hollis. Of course, the tracklist on this album works almost like a calling card with all of the different genres and styles that influence Hollis's sound. We have tracks on this thing inspired by house, left field and queer-aligned strains of dance pop music, plus a mix of the most entrancing and also aggressive sounds to be popping out of terminally online hip hop communities at the moment.

And throughout the record, inadvertently or maybe advertently, I'm catching a lot of wiffs of a lot of different things I appreciate. Maybe not pulling on them so hard or specifically I can call it a super direct influence. It's hard to say. But certainly there are at least ripples of influence flowing through this thing from the worlds of indietronica, maybe Crystal Castles, a little hyperpop, too. I'm catching some Drain Gang vibes here and there as well. One thing that cannot be denied about 2hollis, if you're aware of the current music landscape, is that his finger is just on the pulse. I'm not sure if there are many albums I have heard this year that sound more like a product of their time than this one, that sound more now than this one.

As far as overall execution is concerned, the production and mixing and flows throughout this record are competent, they're fine. I would also say there is a noticeable care and accuracy to the way Hollis embodies all of these genres and styles tools that influence him the most. And occasionally, when you get a hybrid of a couple of different influences at the same time, there is a seamless combination of the two. It goes over without a hitch.

The issue I have with this record, though, is that no matter how many times I listen to it, there isn't a lot of it I can actually commit to memory, and there's not much going on that calls me back to the album all that much. I don't think the songwriting or structures on this record are all that stand out either. While I do think, again, it is apparent that 2hollis is inspired by a lot of different styles of music, it's rare that I think he's actually putting his own spin on any of it. The song "Girl", for example, sounds like a really weak, forgettable Ian song of all things.

As I was finishing the project, I felt this process of disillusionment happening a little bit, I guess, because I was growing more and more unimpressed with the ideas at the core of these tracks. Like the song "Eldest Child", for example, which is this random acoustic cut toward the very end of the album where Hollis is obviously going for a bit of an intimate emotional moment. But I think an actual songwriter worth their salt would have written a song here that would have sounded good, whether it was wrapped in quirky DAW-produced electrobeats or just like some simple acoustic guitar chords.

But this track here, lyrically and melodically, is just coming in and out with the breeze. There was nothing memorable or stunning about it at all.

Then there's the closing track, "Safe", which reads like this very long, meandering, aimless, auto-tuned tension builder with a lot of unfocused vocal and lyrical rambling and ripping. It really goes nowhere fast and doesn't even give us a payoff at the very end of the track to make all of this time that we're waiting worth it.

Now, to the record's credit, I do think it starts stronger than it finishes. The beginning intro of the album is cute and the tight transition made into "Flash" is awesome as hell. There's a certain rawness to the way that Hollis goes about his vocal delivery and a very dry, crisp production on this track, too. We have another hard style outro on this track as well, which is a bit grating, but it's a fun switch up.

But then immediately after this, the album's quality starts to drop off. The song "Cope" is difficult to put my finger on. It just sounds like a very drab fusion of pop and RnB, with production that is too flat and dry and rigid and soulless to make the song really sound all that great.

Meanwhile, tracks like "You" and "Nerve" and "Destroy Me", while they do bring punchier beats and groups to the table, each song sounds like a slightly more successful remix of a pop song that nobody could quite remember because the boyish generic vocals are uninspired and bland. The melodies on these tracks aren't really anything to write home about either.

The song "Tell Me", I think, is what you get when you gentrify Kanye West's Yeezus. The song "Burn" at its core reads like a very Target commercial, hopecore summery millennial pop ballad. But I feel like 2hollis is trying to throw us off the trail with that by shrouding it in these very quirky, zany electro beats with a hyper-aggressive trap outro along the finish.

There are some more distorted and in your face shorter cuts toward the back end of the album that I don't really think add that much to the track list, too. For the most part, not only did I find this album to lack any distinct character due to any memorable or actually substantive songwriting, there's also, again, the lack of a distinct fingerprint when it comes to dabbling in any of the genres that are touched upon in the tracklist on this record. It's a Jack of all trades, but simultaneously master of none thing.

Overall, I can't help but feel like the songs and performances on this record are a lot less bold and edgy than what 2hollis was doing on his last album, too. Maybe that was a conscious choice due to this being more of a potentially mainstream release. I don't know. Either way, it feels like a noticeable step down from the past couple of records.

Not to mention that with this album being so trendy and being so, again, of the time period that it was born out of, there's really no shortage of much more interesting competitors when it comes to music that exists along the parallels creatively that this album does, too.

So, yeah, overall, I wasn't impressed by this record. Found it to be just supremely average in numerous ways, which is why I'm feeling a light to decent 5 on it.

Anthony Fantano, 2hollis, Forever.