Hi, everyone, Bloodthany Angetano here, the internet's busiest music nerd. It's time for a review of this new Sematary mixtape, "Bloody Angel."

Okay, here we have the latest tape from rapper, singer, songwriter, California guy, Sematary. Someone I haven't formally reviewed in a minute, the last project of his I loved was his Rainbow Bridge 3 mixtape, so maybe he's due for a reintroduction at this point.

I want to say out of the gate, this guy's music is not going to be for everyone. But still, it's interesting how Sematary's sound has such an oddly specific appeal to it, but simultaneously pulls from a wide variety of places. Imagine if you took the raw explosive appeal of Chief Keef era Chicago drill music and then added to that the campy and violent vibes and imagery of your average horrorcore hip hop album. Then filter all of that through as much autotune, distortion, compression, and gain as possible. If you manage to create something with all of those elements, you will be somewhere within the realm of Sematary's sound. This is a sound Sematary pretty much perfected on that Rainbow Bridge 3 mixtape.

The problem, though, is a lot of that project's appeal came down to how harsh and ugly and unforgiving its sound was. It became a breakout project for a Sematary and simultaneously was already so over the top and didn't leave him a lot of room to progress past this point or leapfrog over some of the aspects of this tape. Because what is what are we going to do from here? Make a project that is somehow more distorted, more just bricked out? If you got any noisier than this, you would pretty much just be uploading white noise to Spotify.

So, without a lot of options left in front of him, Sematary made some interesting moves post the release of this project. He decided to focus more on building up the overall roster of his Haunted Mound collective, which features a lot of very similar horror core trap, kindred spirits such as Hackle and Bukshot. And then the next tape he dropped that very same year, Screaming Forest, saw him really turning down the distortion quite a bit, making the mixes and vocals a lot more readable. But the issue with that, again, though, was that the harshness was really core to Sematary's appeal. And in pulling back and toning his sound down, he really removed a key aspect of his recipe. And the end results, in my opinion, didn't quite work.

In Sematary's defense, since that project, he's really been branching out and trying to incorporate some different styles into his sound and work more with melody, make his hooks pop more. And I think this tape here is the culmination of those efforts because with Bloody Angel, we have somehow landed in a place where I think Sematary's sound has a bit more of a goth appeal now, especially with the recent release of the single "Wendigo," which has a ton of sloshed, warped, wiggly guitars in the mix.

I think there are some other tracks on this LP that hit roughly in the same way some of Yeat's more druggy and chaotic stuff used to a few years ago. And in addition to that, a lot of the distortion and compression of the Rainbow Bridge tapes is back, but not turned up too high, just enough so that there is some extra room for the vocals to be more intelligible, for those song melodies to really translate. So, a few years down the road, we are finally getting some admirable and notable changes in Semetery's sound. But with that being said, Bloody Angel still feels like a transitional moment where whatever evolution Semetery is trying to complete is just not fully finished.

Now, in the record's defense, I do think it starts off relatively strong. The title track is an aggressive and banging combination of drill and horrorcore with a lot of sticky standout autotune lyrics. I think this song is one of the best examples this tape has to offer of this new balance between harshness and melodic appeal that Semetery is going for. I would say this is also the case for the song "Headlights," where many the vocal and synth melodies are a bit meltier and woosier.

There's also "Wendigo" that I mentioned earlier, which I wasn't crazy about as a single when I first heard it, but in the context of the record, I do think it is one of the stronger songs here. It is a genuinely admirable attempt at making a Goth rock song work within the context of Semetery's overall sound. In a weird way, it reminds me of the heavy, mutant, atmospheric, weirdo goth stuff that a band like Grave Babies used to do back in 2013. I also think the lyrics on this track speak to Semetery's very unique style, sense of humor, and general appeal, in that he's trying to write this song about devotion and desire, I guess love in a way, too, but he's filtering it through all of these horror-type images in a way that comes across as very self-aware and consciously preposterous.

And speaking of ridiculous as well as self-aware, there's also the track, "Smoke Machine," which is a smoke anthem where Semetery tries to make it very it's clear that he is not talking about weed. This song's about cigs, just blasting cigs, just broadcasting that with bars like, "I ain't smoking on reefer boy / I'm smoking on that fucking cancer." Remember, kids, don't smoke unless you're a goth girl, country singer, or EDM DJ. That I can agree to.

There's also the song "Mordor,: where, yes, Semetery portrays himself as riding around Mordor. He be at the club we pour for. Again, not only outlandish, but funny, too. I think Semetery is doing a better job of building up his appeal, Haunted Mound's appeal, the lore of this collective, this brand, with not just the sound and the distortion and the noisiness of the music, but the narrative within it, the things he says. "Parking Lot Scarecrow," in my opinion, is also a banger.

But after this point on the tape, I think things start to go downhill, lose steam. We're painting ourselves into a corner, not only with tracks that feel like a rehash of past successes in the Semetery discography, but we're also getting mixes that just frankly do not work, which is really saying something because generally the amount of distortion and harshness in your average Semetery song, even the toned-down ones, is pretty high. Which is why it's shocking that the high hats aren't properly mixed into the instrumental on "Sacrifice." They're literally so high in volume and tinny, they are painful to.

We have more variations in style on the song "Bury My Heart," which is this synth horror odyssey instrumental piece that sounds like John Carpenter on too much cough syrup. There's also "Benadryl Angel," which I think is maybe just a little bit too on the nose with its adherence to over-the-counter drugs as a means of altering your mind, escaping whatever. I know, again, the appeal of Semetery is to be ridiculous and to be over the top, but come on.

Moving further down the road, there's "Hearse Trucks," which I think Semetery has already done tracks that have this level of distortion in the mix and topical appeal. I mean, "Murder Ride." And in the last leg of the tape, we get a lot of features that don't really add that much to the project because there's a balance here. If you sound like yourself on a Semetery song, chances are you're going to stick out like a sore thumb if you're not succumbing to being buried in the mix, having all the auto-tune on your voice, maybe sounding clear or, I don't know, singing in a normal way.

I think Wicca Phase Springs Eternal comes the closest to contributing effectively to the track that he is featured on while simultaneously still sounding like himself. There's also "Dead Trees," which I appreciate for trying to switch things up a little bit, but the very bright glissy synthesizers that Semetery throws into the mix on this one I don't think really vibe with his overall sound.

And by the time we hit "Get Money N' Die," it's very clear that Sem does not care whether or not the refrains coming out of his mouth are even catchy at this point. In fact, it feels like we've regressed a bit, not just to Rainbow Bridge 3, but maybe even to before that. It is with that, I want to say. I think Semetery still has a very unique sound and style and appeal and lane in today's underground music landscape. I do appreciate and applaud any and all attempts on this project to switch things up and merely not just release another Rainbow Bridge 3 or another Butcher House, for that matter.

But if this is his best attempt at branching out, varying things up a bit, and maturing his songwriting style, it's just not going far enough, which is why I'm feeling a strong 5 to a light 6 on this one.

Anthony Fantano, Semetery, Forever.