Hi, everyone. Yeathony Notano here, the internet's busiest music nerd, and it's time for a review of this new brakence project, marroW.

Here is the second full-length album since signing to Columbia Records for producer, singer, and songwriter Randy Findell, aka brakence. An artist who I have been curiously following the trajectory of since he started making waves around the pandemic, and while I don't claim to love everything he was doing around that time, he was genuinely showcasing a great deal of potential around a very chaotic and unique combination of genres. Emo, hip-hop, glitch music, R&B, alternative pop, and even hyper-pop, too.

Obviously, there was a great deal of noise around a lot of these styles around that time and some of the biggest artists working with them, but again, brakence was one of the few who was kind of doing them all to the degree that he was. And while the breakout punk2 was a little short in terms of a full-length project, it still had some impressive highlights on it and left me wondering what brakence would go on to do next.

Eventually, the time would come when Randy would really have to build things out and show us what he could do with a fuller view of his sound and style that would arrive in the form of his 2022 record, hypochondriac, an album that certainly had its fair share of super vocal supporters. And from the pushback I received at the time when I reviewed the thing, I think you could accurately say this was an album that brakence fans wanted to hear, sort of met their expectations and anticipations in terms of quality.

But if it wasn't already clear, personally, I just didn't really see it that way. Because hypochondriac really lost me in for a handful of different reasons. Grating vocals, watered-down glitch-style production, and a lot of out-of-touch, self-obsessed lyricism that supporters of this record read as being very meta and self-aware.

Personally, I didn't, and I don't know, even if it was in retrospect with this new album cycle here not doing quite as hot as it could be, dropping a record with that kind of commentary so early on just feels even less compelling to me. Thankfully, brakence doesn't seem to be looking in the mirror quite as much lovingly on this new LP over here. Ironically or not. And I think you could make the case that he is really coming into his own on this album in a lot of ways.

He's really come up as the alternative R&B white dude alpha dog with major label support. And his trademark style and sound, I think, has become clearer to me than ever. I can certainly pick brakence out of a lineup. Even with swift competition coming from the likes of Aries or even Quadeca to an extent.

That being said, though, I think I am coming out of this album somehow feeling even less moved by brakence's music than I ever have. And I think it really boils down to his specific recipe and combination of these musical styles, the way he approaches them. The aesthetic M.O. of this record is laid out pretty clearly by its first couple of tracks, which really set the tone for an hour of material backed by splorchy and gloopy off-kilter-glitch production, laced with bassy kicks and depressive keys.

And then vocally, brakence is bringing these very kind of smooth R&B style leads, but puts a stank on them that is not too unlike that of your average melodramatic emo singer screaming his brains out out of heartache. Really to the point where he is forcing all of these strains and cracks in his voice that make me just want to rip the headphones straight off my skull. Repeatedly throughout this record, these vocalizations are really just a non-starter for me. And he's leaning even more into them here than he was on hypochondriac.

And I know this is something that is clearly appealing to a majority of brakence's fans, and not a lot of people are kind of reading this music in the way that I am, the way that I'm about to put it right here, right now. But there's something about these vocals that kind of reminds me of the way that bands like Sleep Token incorporate R&B-style singing into their specific type of Disney adult metal. It's just that here we're not hearing it with the super heavy chunky metal guitars.

And with marroW here, there might be a reason why I'm feeling that way this time around. Because if there is one major X factor that separates it, from everything brakence has done so far, it's that there are quite a few of that there are quite a few of very dominant heavy rock passages throughout this album. Not to say guitar hasn't played a role in previous projects or songs; for sure it has. But again, marroW actually features quite a few super heavy moments, and honestly, these portions only serve to make the album sound even more obnoxious.

Like with the closing moments of the second track "death rolL," or the track "bitE," which in my opinion was really the worst single on the record overall, where you have blaring, sloppy riffs matched with these petulant screams that make it kind of sound like brakence is going through some sort of temper tantrum. And I would say the vibes actually turn downright skeevy on the track "wishing well," where you'll hear refrains about this person's dirty mouth! It's like an awful piece of 90s pop rock, Incubus, but doing way too goddamn much.

And subsequent tracks from here are just not really doing much more to appeal to me, frankly. There's "jesteR" which is kind of like this glitch Latin-pop beat combination that is not sensible in the slightest.

Tracks like "guessworK" are absolutely underwhelming in terms of structurally going nowhere fast. Then tracks like "tougH" are absolutely tedious listens in terms of just these unruly, glitchy beats that only serve to provide a noisy backbone for these vocal performances that are jumping octaves, throwing in all these freaky little inflections. Vocally speaking, just really nails on a chalkboard for me.

And "Problem Child" – what is this track other than just an overly stylized John Mayer piece of funky, jazzy guitar pop? Or "crystallized," which in a lot of ways is a Justin Timberlake song that's trying too hard. I feel like another thing I should note, as there are obviously lovers and supporters of this record who will kind of hoist it up as being this incredibly unique standout thing, that much of what I'm hearing here on this record kind of reminds me of some of the early works of a producer extraordinaire, Clarence Clarity, who, through much older albums like No Now, was also working with a lot of these glitchy experimental pop and R&B elements, but doing it in a way that genuinely felt subversive – and not pouring acid directly onto my eardrums.

Overall, there's really just a lot of things working against this album appealing to me. It's a lack of novelty, a lack of creativity, a lack of good quality, memorable songs, songwriting, and vocal performances.

While there are some beats, production, and chord progressions that I can certainly praise for being very technical and complex, the creative ends they are ultimately serving just really do nothing for me whatsoever, which is why I'm feeling about a decent to a strong two on this one.

Anthony Fantano. brakence. Forever.