Bear1Boss ends every song on his new self-titled album with an exclamation mark. It's an indicator of what to expect from the Atlanta rapper's style, and perhaps the only trace of subtlety to be found in connection with it.
28.06.2022 - 21:09 / thefader.com
Malice K has a sneaky way of taking the tropiest of tropes and shaking them by the ankles until only the good bits — the things that made them worthy of repetition in the first place — remain. On his new single, “Changes,” he draws on the sort of brooding nostalgia mined ad nauseam in contemporary pop and boils it down to its essence.
Over a woozy, six-chord, six-bar progression that loops for the track’s entire two-minute run time, the mercurial Pacific Northwest native slurs out an impression of a rudderless singer-songwriter mourning his old self as he reflects on the irrevocable changes time has wrought. Like the rest of his tongue-in-cheek miniatures, which range from proto-punk sketches to baroque laments and beyond, “Changes” is sneeringly self-aware.
Pivoting easily from an Elliot Smith croon to an Isaac Brock bark, Malice K pushes past the usual pop pleasantries. He shows a cool disdain for the vibe he’s encapsulated so effortlessly, but his structures are studiously rendered.
Bear1Boss ends every song on his new self-titled album with an exclamation mark. It's an indicator of what to expect from the Atlanta rapper's style, and perhaps the only trace of subtlety to be found in connection with it.
dltzk has officially changed their stage name to Jane Remover, and the 18-year-old leaves a discography still worth getting excited about. 2021's Teen Week was a watershed achievement in the hyperpop/digicore that, despite the artist's misgivings, still shines with how it ambitiously collides genres in service of unvarnished teenage ennui.