While the lyrics that bluntly come off as just teenage angst and drug glorification at initial listens, they start to manifest themselves into genuine, subtle cries for help. Lil Peep knew how to write songs that could break into your head, and with Hellboy, he used this talent of his to make the longest, most ambitious full length released in his lifetime. I would argue this is essentially the emotional pre-cursor in the minimalistic/entrancing wave of trap, later spearheaded more psychedelically by Playboi Carti, rather than the minimalism being an unintentional fault. The reason a lot of people don’t like the sound(s) that Lil Peep has to offer mainly comes down to his minimalistic approach to song structures, containing usually 1 (occasionally 2) verses, with a hook that rings either 2-4 times, depending on the track. Tracks like “OMFG”, “The Song They Played (When I Crashed into the Wall)”, and the Underoath-sampling title track all feature guitar-based samples that Peep, along with his producers, all come to warp into one unique, grandiose sound.That, and the lightning-in-a-bottle effect of when + how Hellboy was recorded, is what made Hellboy his first project to genuinely make waves, whether for praise or pure loathing. Everything is held together by an impeccable producer-lineup, featuring Nedarb, Yung Cortex, Smokeasac, and Charlie Shuffler, among others With all of this at play,there’s no way this project will ever have anything to really compare it to. Those previously mentioned negative aspects are overshadowed by Peep’s presence, or Lil Tracy’s vocals, and KirbLaGoop’s (whom i would die defending, by the way) overall polarizing delivery. The production from Nedarb (who is definitely Peep’s most consistent producer) is ethereally lifting, and Peep’s hooks ring like an anthemic joyride. But at the same time, I can’t even say that “Drive-By” is a bad track though, even with the awkward feature. In fact, the only real drawbacks from this record come from some of the features, mainly Horsehead’s shameless lack of charisma on “Girls” and the near swerve off of the road that is Xaviur Wulf’s boring and lyrically dense feature on “Drive-By”. While his earlier mixtapes perfected the atmospheric emo lyrics with sludgy, teamSESH/Bones inspired vocal deliveries (particularly LiL PEEP: Part One), and then the minimalistic sample-flipping beats paired with a new melodic vocal energy found on Crybaby nothing before could have ever predicted the splash that Lil Peep made when he was swimming through the muddy, lean-fueled epitome of everything that was Lil Peep, with the project Hellboy. It’s genuinely difficult to introduce Lil Peep as anything other than extremely polarizing, to say the very least. Review Summary: The ultimate culmination of everything that encompassed Lil Peep, becoming the sole standard project for Emo-Rap that so many copycats have tried to replicate, but never reinvent.
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