Hi everyone, Yeathony Yeatano here, the Internet's busiest music nerd, and it's time for a review of this new Yeat album, ADL.

Yes, we have the newest album from West Coast rapper and vocalist, underground breakout Yeat, a once mysterious and obscure artist who has risen to become one of the most exciting young talents in hip-hop today. And he's been on quite a run lately as well, slowly growing his audience with each new release, something he even addresses on the track "What I Want", where he says, "Every time I drop an album, I'm gon' double sales, uh / Went from thirteen to thirty-two to seventy, uh".

And even I myself have been admiring the trajectory, with ADL here being one of my most anticipated albums of the year for a few reasons.

One, Yeat did drop one of my favorite records of 2024, 2093, one of the most interesting projects and artists to come out of the underground and rage scene so far, mostly for Yeat's ability to experiment with this sound successfully, sometimes fusing it with elements of industrial and dance music. Not to mention all of the wild and out-there vocal inflections that kind of make some of his contemporaries seem like they're playing it safe, which is saying something for a genre of music where sometimes an artist will just turn up doing Cookie Monster voice on a track. I don't know.

And while yes, it is true that Yeat quickly followed this album up with LYFESTYLE, a much more predictable record that almost felt like him acknowledging to his audience, "okay, maybe I went too far and tried tried too many different things and experimented too much. Don't wanna challenge you guys a whole lot, I guess". Still, though, it didn't seem like he was going to run that same play again on ADL. Not only because the DANGEROUS SUMMER EP Yeat dropped last year contained some of his most clear-headed, hard-hitting, exciting bangers to date, it was a very focused project that seemed almost like he was leaning more into sobriety and making songs that were just a bit less druggy.

But in addition to all this, a recent interview with Zane Lowe revealed that Yeat is truly in his ambition era here, and used that conversation as an opportunity to ready fans for a record where he was going to be different and pushing the envelope in some way. And Yeat feels pretty confident in himself doing this. I mean, on the closing track, we have literally the line that goes, "I'm the only one of my generation changin' music this time."

But now that ADL is here and I've been able to hear the whole thing, I think Yeat has fallen way short of that promise, that assessment, to the point where I'm really wondering where his self-awareness is at, because this is one of his most unimaginative and derivative records yet.

And it's not that Yeat doesn't try doing some new stuff, try challenging himself. He definitely does. I mean, ADL, for all of its flaws, at the very least is not just this run of distorted, one-dimensional rage cuts. I mean, there's a few songs that trend in that direction a bit, but pretty much everything else on this tracklist that you could categorize as being experimental or different for Yeat is basically something borrowed from Ye, formerly Kanye West, on records like Life of Pablo, his Ye bipolar album, Donda.

Which kinda tracks. I mean, Yeat being a child of the internet and getting into hip-hop around that point where he was coming of age, he not only would have been exposed to all of those hype cycles when they happened, but also it would have been drilled into him that Ye is an artful, forward-thinking producer and songwriter, and when you're thinking of, like, ambitious, epic music that challenges norms, like, Ye is the guy.

And not that that hasn't been true in the past on many a project, but Yeat's reference points for music that does that, that scratches that itch, that pushes the envelope, just seem pretty narrow. On this record, at least, they only seem to extend to Ye and Ye's protégés. Because, again, on many tracks here he is merely just tracing within the lines of many of his recent albums, but also Travis Scott's stuff. And while Travis has long been a pretty clear influence for Yeat, I feel like he's leaning even harder into that here and showcasing these influences in just a much less interesting way. Whether he's handing in these very anthemic, AutoTune-heavy vocal cuts with hefty doses of trippy effects and piano, like on "Dangerous House", or giving us this kind of mid-paced, guitar-back tune with 070 Shake on it that pretty much feels like the song "Ghost Town" from his Ye album.

Yeat even occasionally gives us these off-the-rails sexual screeds that read as more cringe than charismatic. "Ooh-ooh-ooh, ah, when you outside in the sundress, let me fuck." There's also the song "Naked", which is pretty much like 90 seconds of just that. Or "Let King Tonka Talk", which is pretty much a full song of Yeat being horny at the club, wanting to bang anything that moves, with a random Kylie Jenner feature, which is obviously terrible. But yeah, this song is pretty much every unfiltered pornographic braggadocious thought popping into Yeat's head. But the song has a really forgettable flow, totally unsexy beat, and not even an ounce of wit to make any of this stuff go down smoothly.

And also, in true Yeat fashion, Yeat will sometimes give us these incredible eye-roll moments. "Yeah, wanna see it, but you never did / Yeah, you wanna stand, but you always sit / Yeah, so I'ma start calling you 'Opposite' / Yeah, and I'ma fuck you, leave you hollerin'." But the issue is Yeat doesn't even have a fraction of the charisma or musicality to sell anything on this level.

But yeah, not only is the Ye sound throughout this record just too close for comfort, but it seems like much of the time Yeat is doing everything he can to actively draw our attention to it and remind us of it, as if enjoying Ye's music is a selling point, or something we should be really proud of him for. There's even a song on here featuring Kid Cudi titled "NO MORE GHOSTS".

I will say, not all of the hero worship on ADL is completely awful. Yeah, much of it is annoying and unbearable, but there are cuts like the Swizz Beatz song on this record where, you know, he's doing pretty decent, it's a hype moment. The quality ranges, but never at any point is Yeat really outdoing any of his biggest inspirations, or, you know, embellishing upon them enough to make their sounds his in any capacity.

But with this record being an hour long, of course there are some songs that maybe feel a more typical for Yeat, these low-key, synth-heavy, vibey cuts that are very easy to sink into and slowly kind of fade into the background. And while these tracks are definitely palatable, they do make for some of this album's least memorable moments, be it either "Real Life Shit" or "What I Want".

"My Way", which has of course the Julia Wolfe intro, who kind of seems like the go-to now for rappers to just kind of have a random snippet of her at the start of the song just to kind of break it into something completely different immediately after. The song "2Planës" as well, which kind of feels like Yeat really wanting a sad moment on the back end of the record but not having anything sad to say to justify this mood switch. The song "Silk Facë" too, which goes nowhere fast.

And then there's the closer that I made a nod to earlier with that ridiculous line about pushing music, because where the hell is Yeat pushing music on this record except into the recycling bin? Or, I don't know, closer to Ye, to Kanye West? Which is weird at this point, because not only is Kanye dropping at the same week as Yeat once again with this project. But like, a couple of years ago, commercially speaking, Yeat was providing Kanye like some actual competition in terms of numbers.

And frankly, it's hard to see ADL doing the same, because again, if you really want to hear the sounds on this record done better, you could just go listen to the guy that just put out a goddamn album. Which is why I'm feeling a light 2 to decent 3 on this project.

Anthony Fantano, Yeat. Forever.