Hi, everyone. Pinkthony Stripetano here, the internet's busiest music nerd, and it's time for a review of this new Che album, Rest in Bass.

Here we have a new LP from Georgia native rapper, Che. This is his second album, the follow-up to last year's Sayso Says. And Che's style, sound, makeup is purely a product of the internet age. I mean, the first steps of his career came through some tracks going viral on TikTok, and he operates within a genre that is just so terminally online in terms of its context and origins.

Of course, I'm talking about rage, this hyper, synthy, loud, aggressive, distorted brand of trap popularized by artists like Trippie Redd and Playboi Carti, as well as Lil Uzi Vert, to name just a few. And while I haven't necessarily been the biggest fan of this musical movement broadly, one thing I can give it is that it's gotten massively popular mostly on its own terms. Meaning that its mainstream exposure hasn't necessarily led to its flagship artists scrambling to change up their style and sound to basically go for a larger commercial appeal, something more pop-centric. Again, just a change we haven't seen, even as artists like Playboi Carti and Yeat have landed features and collaboration spots with the likes of Kendrick Lamar and Drake.

And most artists in this wave seem more than content to just do their own thing and feed either off of each other or their own nihilism as a source of inspiration. And this has resulted in a network of names that has more or less redefined what underground music is for a new generation of rap fans.

Now, up until this point, I have covered a bunch of artists who have operated in this genre or have been adjacent to it in some way. And while I do think there's a lot of merit to the vibe and ethos many of these dudes bring to the table, most of their full entire albums will often lead me wanting more due to an overall lack of vision as well as follow-through. Whether you're talking about the bloated tracklist that have played Playboi Carti's recent projects, or the slovenly flows of a guy like Destroy Lonely. And also the unrelenting distortion and brain rot on the new OsamaSon record, for example.

But with Che, I'm not going to tell you this guy is like a breath of fresh air or doing something radically different from many of his rage contemporaries. He's not. And if rage is not your thing at all, I wouldn't really be surprised if you just wrote this off like any other album in the genre. Certainly, this record is not going to be for everyone.

I digress even further, but I think Che himself would even acknowledge how much of a profound influence a guy like Playboi Carti has on his music. But even though in many ways, Rest in Bass is a pretty predictable record for this style, I still found myself enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would, mostly because I think Che delivers on a lot of the inferences that rage music makes out of the gate that, weirdly, many of its most significant artists just don't. He fulfills the promise of this sound, this style, being aggressive, being visceral, and bringing an actual rock star spirit that transcend genre. Which, again, is a sense I don't often get when we're talking about artists whose performances on records such as this come across less engaged or low effort or apathetic.

Certainly, I do understand the feelings of apathy that many of these artists may be exhibiting and reacting to when it comes to the world they were born out of. But I don't think that should extend to apathy for the music itself. Call me corny, but I do think the tracks these artists create should feel engaging and locked in, even if they're not trying to scratch the deepest of mental itches.

If you're going into this Che record, though, looking for bars and emotional intelligence and depth, though, you will be sorely disappointed. It's a lot of flexing, it's a lot of materialism, it's a lot of lean. A lot of lean getting poured up on this record, for sure. So yeah, what you see is what you get with Che for the most part. But I think he makes up for that lack of layers with an abundance of energy and enthusiasm.

Take the intro track "Slam Punk", for example, a start of the record that is just bursting at the with thunderous 808s, repetitive whaling synths, shouty adlibs, and lead vocals that are so wild that's making the autotune on them glitch out. The whole track sounds like a massive mosh pit with some lyrical shoutouts to Lil B, of all people, which – it's great that Che is actually in touch seemingly with the weird online rap lineage he's a part of that many of the artists in this style just seem blissfully unaware of.

But yeah, the first track on this thing, it goes hard as hell, as many opening tracks on these records do. But Che actually manages to keep the momentum up going deeper into the record, whether we are talking about the sloshy bass synths and sputtering high hats on "Rolling Stone", where the lead vocals are just punchy with compression.

The track "On Fleek" following this is somehow even freakier than the past two tracks. The bass is even more booming and aggressive. Che's lead vocals just have these cartoonish cracks in his inflections, which are somehow made even zanier with the autotune.

There are deeper cuts to be had where, yes, the aggression and the distortion continues, but the synthesizers laced into the production or Che's lead vocals bring maybe more of a melodic appeal or an anthemic chorus, whether you're talking about "Lip Filler", which seemingly does showcase a bit of pop sensibility for Che. There's also "MDMA", which features a chord progression that feels lifted straight out of a big festival EDM set. "Dior Leopard", synths and production make me feel like I'm listening to the deep fried remains of an old-school NES video game soundtrack.

And believe it or not, as far as chord progressions that are a little sweet on the ears and have a melodic appeal, the closing track, "Bass", lifts a sample straight out of a goddamn Beach House song. And yet in the context of this very aggressive, very explosive brand of rap, it somehow works. Just the juxtaposition of that beauty, but also that harshness.

Then there are other standout moments on this project that don't bring so much a harmonious or a melodic appeal, maybe more instead a straightforward banger beat with a lot of groove, the vibes that make you want to crash your car through a storefront, get out, and begin crowd killing right there in the broken glass.

I'm talking "Hood Famous", which features a fantastic beat switch in the midst of the track, one of several very good beat switches on the album, actually. Also, "Mannequin", whose beat is actually pretty unlikely for this genre, but Che manages to make it work anyway with a pretty solid feature from Xaviersobased.

There are some other surprise moments on the record as well where we do get a bit of variety due to the features, namely Chuckyy, whose relaxed rap style sans autotune entirely is an interesting switch up from what's on the rest of this album. A very strong contrast to Che's freaky, boyish, guttural inflections.

So toward the back end of the record, we continue to get some switch ups, but it's a mixed bag in terms of whether or not they actually work. "Eardrummer" shoots for something much more chill than anything else here, but it just ends up underwhelming as a result. Meanwhile, "Doe Deer is one of the most extreme cuts on this entire record, this punky noise rock, rage, trap fusion that features production that feels like I'm listening to just distorted, blown out arcade Space Invader synths. The track "Bass", which is the closing track that I mentioned earlier, is that Beach House-sampling cut that actually ends things off on a relatively strong note.

So yeah, I ended up enjoying way more tracks than I thought I would going into this. But still, with that being said, I do feel like this record suffers from at least some of the same issues that many rage LPs do with the overall lack of sonic and aesthetic variety, the lack of song structure sometimes or memorable moments that get just lost in the haze of screams and just very explosive moments. For as creative and locked in as Chase seems to be for a bulk of this album, there are some cuts here that just feel too alike in style and sound to many of his contemporaries. Even Che himself manages to slip in a spare song or two that feels like he's just completely winging it and is not really on tempo.

Still, I found Rest in Bass to be one of the more solid and engaging records I think I've ever heard in this style, which is why I'm feeling a strong 6 to a light 7 on it.

Anthony Fantano, Che, Forever.