It’s been four years since the
Odd-Future-member-turned-indie/r&b-icon graced us with his last album Channel Orange. Since then he’s been in
hiding, rumours of a new album circulating for the last 48 months, false
release dates being constantly announced, missing posters going up around NewYork City. There’s been a dangerous amount of hype. If Frank was ever going to
emerge back into the sunlight from his recording studio/nuclear bunker, he
would have to come through with something pretty damn special.
And that he has certainly done. In the space of a week, he’s
dropped not just one, but two new albums, Endless
and Blonde/Blond (spelt two ways to be edgy and to confuse fans). For this review, we’ll focus purely
on the latter, since this seems to be the main attraction, Endless serving more as a side-dish in the form of a giant
avant-garde music video (a ‘visual album’ if you want to get all technical
about it), although sonically there isn’t really much difference between the
two – both consisting of slow r&b ballads largely devoid of hooks and
percussion, punctuated by massive wtf-moments.
‘Nikes’ kicks Blonde/Blond
off to a rather sour start. Delivered in an annoying pitched-up chimpmunk vocal
tone, Frank offers some stream-of-consciousness babble that sees him noting
his likeness to Trayvon Martin and confessing his love for a mermaid version of
FKA Twigs, also briefly uttering some nonsense about ‘rain’ and ‘glitter’. The track sets the tone with its pretty chords and meandering lack-of-structure, although thankfully is the only case where Frank adopts robot-on-helium vocals.
Excluding a random skit of Frank’s mother telling him not to
be ‘a weedhead’, the next few tracks are all intimate ballads that see the
singer showing off his sweet voice over beautiful percussionless chord
arrangements. ‘Solo’ stands out as a highlight with its gorgeous organs and intriguing lyrical
ambiguity – (is it ‘solo’ he really means, or ‘so low’?). It feels like one of
the few moments where Frank isn’t trying to pass off gibberish as poetry,
having abandoned the vivid storytelling of Channel Orange. ‘Skyline To’
meanwhile stands out as another highlight, set to a Tyler-the-Creator produced instrumental
of melancholy guitars, with emotive crooning over the top.
About midway through the record, Frank then full on loses
his marbles. An entire track dedicated to Andre 3000 speedily spitting over
pianos is followed by ‘Pretty Sweet’, which opens with the r&b singer
yelling over a cacophony of dissonant strings. Following this is an excerpt of
a heavily-accented man refusing to friend someone on Facebook. It’s all very
confusing, although reassuringly seems to only be a temporary bout of madness, Frank
returning for some more percussionless ballads towards the close of the record including ‘White
Ferrari’ with its miasmic detuned synths and ‘Siegfried’ with its acrobatic
vocal performance. Here the beauty of Blonde/Blond
really shines through. It’s just a shame Frank has to ugly it all up at the very end by
dedicating the last four minutes of ‘Futura’ to experimental clutter, tailing off the record by forcing the listener to scramble for the mute button.
Indeed, you’d be ignorant to dismiss this entire album as
pure garbage. There are moments of pure artistry on Blonde/Blond, not all of which reveal themselves on first listen. ‘Pretty
Sweet’ seems to sum up this concept – opening to complete chaos before slowly
dissipating into something truly tuneful.
Of course, to call it a masterpiece would be just as rash, as
there are as many obnoxious parts as there are sophisticated moments. The ‘thought of becoming a dream’ stoner
babble at the end of ‘Siegfried’ and aforementioned ‘rain, glitter’ line in ‘Nikes’
feel like moments that could be humorous if Frank accepted they were gibberish.
Instead, he lets us believe there’s some divine deeper meaning, which only
frustrates me into thinking other messy moments aren’t as intentional as they seem.
What if Frank simply forgot to insert the drum tracks into most of these songs?
What if ‘Solo’ only has a solo meaning and no other interpretations?
Frank certainly tries a lot of daring things on this album.
But sometimes it feels like he’s throwing random ideas at the canvas and seeing
what sticks. Because he can.
★★★☆☆
TRACK TASTER: