RELEASED 5TH JULY 2019

Favourite Track: P

I don’t even know how to sum up Jaden’s album. Just listen.

Jaden’s latest album has the internet talking (once again). The rapper/songwriter/producer has released ERYS (which is a reflection of one of his other albums: SYRE…nice touch). If you’re familiar with the cover art of his other albums, CTV2 and SYRE, you’ll notice the pink/purple clouded sky and the bold writing remains constant, although this time we actually have Jaden on the front cover sitting on a pink couch with a city skyline in the background. I think it’s all about perspective here. We have the sky shown in CTV2 (as if he’s lying down), an image of him lying down in such a position in SYRE and then him changing to another location under the same sky in the latest album. To try to figure out the meaning behind all of Jaden’s songs and work would probably warrant a book or journal of essays but I only have roughly 500 words (lol help I’m so gonna go over).

Rather than spelling out ‘BLUE’ this time, Jaden spells out ‘PINK’ with the first 4 tracks of the album. ‘P’ opens up with some melancholic piano, childhood wind-up toy box sound effects and gorgeous pure young vocals contrasted with some adult rapper audio. I think if this is the opening song of this album…I am HYPED to hear the rest. Jaden is extremely talented and my god the song is so beautiful with electric guitar too. The song swiftly changed into ‘I’ which is a continuation of ‘P’ that then becomes Hip-Hop with rapping and a hard beat. The song then builds up with some distortion into ‘N’ which opens up with some echoed vocals and rapping again with more vocal background work and bass all about “the city” and how “fake” Los Angeles is. The builds and drum hits every so often give this song attack. By the time we reach ‘K’ the ending of ‘N’ slows right down into an echo. ‘K’, featuring Lido, has really nice electric guitar and singing/rapping that has more of a drum-kit beat this time.       

I was excited to see Tyler, The Creator featured on ‘NOIZE’ which has a Kendrick Lamar feel to it for sure. There is a lot of electric guitar, hard beat and attack in this song…wowwww. I like the Hip-Hop beat and quirky modern rap vocals in ‘i-drip-or-is’ which reminds me a lot of Travis Scott’s music. ‘Again’, featuring an artist by the name of SYRE, has a STRONG beat and a Travis Scott feel once again. I think Jaden must have been inspired by Scott’s music a lot because the background shouts are really paying homage to that with the song then becoming soft, romantic and pretty with some warm waves in the background of vocals broken up by some expletives with the end audio. ‘Got It’ has a very current 2019 Trap/Hip-Hop style to it with a solid beat and good backing music. ‘Fire Dept’ is straight up rock and roll. Talk about a genre switch-up but it’s got energy to it that’s for sure. I mean, why not mix it up? ‘Mission’, featuring Trinidad James, has an intense bassline and good beat accompanied by rapping once again. I was interested to see what ‘Summer in Paris’ would be like since his sister, Willow, features on it (how can one family be so talented?) and it displays Jaden’s vocal ability well. It’s romantic and mixes Rock and Hip-Hop well I think with some atmospheric instrumentals in the background.

The guitar in the melancholic song about heartbreak ‘Blackout’ alongside the vocal work here which then builds into a complicated chorus that just captures the intensity of his expression in music form. A$AP Rocky features on ‘Chateau’ which again, has that attack to it. The beat is hard and the background music makes this one dramatic. The rapping is great here and I can see it being played in a Hip-Hop room in a club. ‘On My Own’, featuring Kid Cudi is brilliant. The drama here is mad and the beat is different and simple but it is powerful as fuck with a kind of chain-like sound effect and crazy good electric guitar in the background. The final track, ‘ERYS’ is very futuristic Rock sounding that again, reminds me of Kendrick Lamar/Kanye West combined genre music. I like the echoed drums here a lot. Then the song changes around 2 minutes into it to become a softer song with a sad tone to it as we learn ‘Erys’ is a person.

This album just needs to be listened to and probably analysed properly because it’s so clever and exhibits a massive amount of creativity, genius and awareness of 2019 music trends.