London artist Sam Akpro\u2019s full-length debut Evenfall<\/i> has a unique beauty, which lies in its unsettlingly claustrophobic feel. The album incorporates influences from hip hop to jazz to grunge, contained in a hauntingly beautiful yet suffocating sonic package that\u2019s like a time bomb waiting to explode.<\/p>\n
\u201cI Can\u2019t See The Sun\u201d has noisy guitar feedback and dissonant saxophones buried underneath the calmness of groovy bass and jazzy drums in the foreground, while Akpro sings\u2014almost like he is rapping\u2014cool as a cucumber. This song has all the hallmarks of trip hop with its unconventional mishmash of styles and a dark undertone, as does the rest of Evenfall<\/i>. <\/p>\n
\u201cDeath By Entertainment\u201d has an industrial rock aggression with coarse bass, cacophonous guitar feedback, and a frenzied rhythm. But all of this anger is smothered, so while you feel the aggression, you do not hear it: a clever play with sounds, which Akpro does so well throughout this record. Similarly, \u201cEvenfall\u201d has an agitated undertone with angsty guitars and disconcerting sounds in the background. But in the foreground, all is placid, with Akpro\u2019s tender but disaffected singing, which is more powerful than the rage in the back.<\/p>\n
Then there are tracks like \u201cCornering Lights\u201d and \u201cCity Sleeps,\u201d that although chill and funky with the grooviness of seventies soul music, still have a dystopian bleakness to them. <\/p>\n
In a way, it makes sense to draw parallels between Evenfall<\/i> and Tricky\u2019s solo debut\u2014and trip hop classic\u2014Maxinquae<\/i> in terms of their mastery in creating chaos by way of complex soundscapes that don\u2019t jump at the listener as much as linger in the listener\u2019s subconsciousness. Evenfall<\/i> does not have the ambition or the hubris of Maxinquae<\/i>. However, with its clever incorporation of different genres and deft instrumentation combined with sharp production, Evenfall<\/i> has the semblance of trip hop music\u2014including music by Tricky\u2019s band Massive Attack\u2014that made this genre beloved to many during its heyday. Although trip hop is not as fashionable these days, as an up-and-coming artist, Akpro is making us fall in love with this music all over again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":35258,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[11071],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-47144","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-sam-akpro","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/47144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/47144\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47144"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=47144"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=47144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}