Well, Bigthony Sleeptano here, the internet's busiest music nerd. It's time for a review of this new Destroy Lonely project, Love Lasts Forever.

Yep, rapper, singer, Destroy Lonely. I have covered his music a couple of times on the channel before through his No Stylist mixtape, and his official full-length debut album, If Looks Could Kill. In a handful of short years, this guy has become one of the most prominent figures on the current day trap and rage scene in the lane of rap music. Seemingly, he has a lot of influence in that world, even if a lot of it has mostly come by way of him being a part of Playboy Carti's Opium label.

Now, unfortunately, that popularity and those industry connections haven't really led to a lot of superb or interesting music from Lonely, as much of the time, a lot of his tracks, in my opinion, come across just very derivative, basic, repetitive, rage-type tracks that are very, very, very much indebted to Playboy Carti to the point where I would just call them straight up derivative, maybe even pointless to a degree. Not just because of the complete and utter lack of originality, but also a lot of his instrumental choices aren't really all that good or interesting.

And his vocals, his flows often are very basic, are unmemorable. It feels like he's ripping through many of his tracks a lot of the time. I hesitate to call much of anything he does writing because a lot of it just feels very off the cuff. As long as rage music continues to be such a huge and prevalent trend on the modern day music scene, I had no reason to assume that Destroy Lonely would do much of anything outside of just feeding Opium fans the rage red meat that they so desire and expect because there's no reason to challenge them or give them anything different. I mean, the whole existence of the Opium label to begin with seems to be to give Carti fans the type of music they desire in between Carti his very spotty and inconsistent release schedule.

But with all of that being said, I will say Love Lasts Forever actually surprised me a little bit because Destroy Lonely doesn't just give us a bunch of very predictable synthies, cycling, distorted, compressed to all hell, rage type tracks on this record. He actually gives us some songs that have a spacy, psychedelic trap vibe to them that are actually dynamic, listenable, and seem pretty well-produced, at least in terms of the clarity of these songs, the clarity of the recording. There's actually an ability for me as a listener to separate all the various sounds going on, and it just doesn't sound like a distorted pile of crap.

Overall, I'll say that it's really cool that Destroy Lonely is changing things up, doing something different, at least by Opium label standards. I don't think a record like this, specifically, is something that his fans necessarily would have expected. However, with that being said, I feel like an album in this style just pretty much exposes how many artistic and creative shortcomings Destroy Lonely has in his songwriting process, if you want to call it that. That lack of originality is even more glaring when you take into account that now, esthetically, he's slid into a direction that is less influenced by Playboy Carti and seemingly has a lot more in common stylistically with the likes of Travis Scott, Lil Uzi Vert, even Don Toliver, I would say, to a lesser extent, Young Thug on some tracks. But with that being said, Destroy Lonely also is vastly, vastly, vastly mediocre in comparison to all of those artists on pretty much every front.

I mean, the lyricism on this record, even if we are seeing an interesting esthetic change, is total drivel when you can actually make it out because still at this point, Lonely is barely intelligible vocally due to his delivery, due to just very weak flows, and just the overuse of effects on his voice. The production, while it is trap-inspired and kind of trippy and psychedelic and smooth at points. It's nowhere near as epic or as colorful as what you might catch on a Travis record or even a Don Toliver album, for that matter. And diving further into it, while it is clear that he does pull a lot of influence on this LP from Young Thug and Lil Uzi Vert, again, who actually features on this album at one point. He doesn't really bring anything to the table vocally that puts him on a level of intrigue that would match those artists in any way. His inflections are pretty one-dimensional and basic. I really would, still at this point, after having reviewed a few of his projects, struggle to pull him vocally out of a lineup. He doesn't have nearly as much range or personality.

While in the grander scheme of things, I will say I do feel like this record is an improvement on Destroy Lonely's last album because comparatively, it is more listenable. I definitely don't feel disgustingly high levels of ear fatigue halfway into the project that just make me want to desperately shut it off. By that same token, there still is a complete and utter lack of anything interesting going on in terms of just vocals, in terms of flows, in terms of lyrics, in terms of instrumental choices, too. I mean, again, while the production is a step up from some of the rage-type esthetics on Lonely's last album, the 808-style perks throughout these tracks are still painfully basic and plain and lack character, lack texture. Meanwhile, the spacy synth patches and lines and bits of bass that surround these rhythms, they lack anything in terms of any character as well. I feel like a lot of these beats you could find similar types of instrumentals just by typing "Travis Scott type beat" into YouTube.

An improvement in some respects, but still a lack of anything interesting on this LP, unfortunately. And I also wonder on some level whether or not Lonely's fans will be disappointed by this move into a stylistic direction that isn't so much Carti-influenced, isn't so rage. Because I think even for hardcore fans, the lack of anything interesting going on as Lonely moves into a territory, moves into a sound that he hasn't necessarily defined himself by. Because, again, this is something new. The fact that he's failing to do anything all that good or stand out in this style will probably become pretty apparent. There's already a lot of this out there, but better, but way better.

I'm feeling like a strong two to a light three on this thing.

Fantano, Destroy Lonely, forever.