Hi, everyone. Bigthony Packtano here, the internet's busiest music nerd.

It's time for a review of this new Young Lean & Bladee album, Psychos.

New surprise collab album between two of the biggest figures in the modern-day Scandinavian music scene. That would be Young Lean and Bladee.

For years these two have pioneered in the terminally online fields of cloud rap, emo trap, and experimental hip hop. 2024 marks 10 years now since the release of Young Lean's debut full-length album, Unkown Memory, and it's also coming up on a decade since the release of Bladee's Eversince, too. Over this course of time, these two have collaborated, crossed over, and inspired one another, which is why it's such a monumental occasion for them to both be doing an entire album together, even if it's only eight tracks and just 22 minutes of run time.

Interestingly, I think Bladee and Lean threw us for a loop on this one because I think some might have expected them to feed into fan expectations and essentially give some vocal ripping over a bunch of trap instrumentals that have watery synth passages and feel like you are traveling at light speed through space or the sea, or maybe some online liminal space. But Psychos is actually more of a rock album with an array of heavy, jangly, psychedelic, and occasionally punky guitar bits.

What the vibe is really depends on the track. The quality of the song really depends on the track, too. The opener "Coda," for example, is a non-starter for me because it's an overly dramatic spoken word cut that, weirdly enough, sounds like something Mark Kozlik would do on a Sun Kill Moon album several years ago, but much, much worse. This track, to me, just reads as very derivative and lacking. And while the following track "Ghosts" does have more of a pulse to it, Bladee's singing is just so obviously flat, painfully flat, to where it really could have used another take. This one is mostly a miss, even if I do like those sparkling guitar layers, and Lean does have a very impassioned vocal performance on the track that I think goes over well.

"Golden God" is the first real bop on the album. It is a moody, gothed out piece of post-punk with tight drum sequences, plucky guitar leads, too. Lean and Bladee trade off with these pretty cool talk-sung vocal passages that I'm not crazy about the EQ-ing on them, as it does leave in maybe a bit too much bass. I can't deny that there is a chemistry there and some great pacing on the track, too. Sadly, the momentum built up by this track does not carry on deeper into the record as the song still brings a lot of the same vocal issues "Ghosts" did, but this time worse, given that now Young Lean is veering too far out of the pitch lane. And while I know that him and a lot of his collaborators in the Drain Gang sphere tend to have a very loose approach when it comes to vocal performances, I still don't really see the appeal here, as performing in this way has little effect outside of coming across obnoxious.

For me, personally, the record works best when its songs are at their most straightforward and punchy, broadly. The song "Sold Out" is about the closest this album gets to, a piece of genuine pop rock. The riffs and structure are really solid, and it's cool to hear Lean and Bladee in a somewhat carefree place on this one. The surreal lyrics on the track are pretty sick, too. And then "Hanging From The Bridge" has similarly positive qualities to it and the best chorus on the entire record to boot. Not only in terms of the singing performances Lean and Bladee lend to it, but the melodic leads as well.

Past this point, the record does not have a super strong ending. As "Enemy" to my ears, just comes across like a formless, distorted mess. The mix is off, the guitars are just taking over everything, and the singing is just... The subpar doesn't describe it. And then the closing track, "Things Happen," feels like a piece of very mediocre, awkward, Elliott Smith worship. Those acoustic guitars are really a dead giveaway.

Sadly not really crazy about this one. I'm glad that it happened. I'm glad Bladee and Lean did it, but respectively I don't see this as a highlight in either of their catalogs. They have both on their own come out with far better albums. It's certainly not the best solo album or collab album Bladee has done as the recent one with Ecco2K washes it. But it's interesting that it happened and that Bladee and Lean operated outside of their comfort zones a bit.

There were a few highlights in the tracklist for sure, but as an overall project on a macro level, there's not really much to glean from it. It's just a very short, very spotty release. No more, no less.

Feeling a light to decent 5 on this one.

Anthony Fantano, Bladee, Young Lean, Forever.