Following the untimely deaths of Lil Peep and XXXTentacion, you could perhaps be forgiven for assuming that the emo rap wave will fade out. Yet Juice WRLD’s colourful second studio album ‘Death Race For Love’ takes emo rap to inventive new heights, with the 20-year-old artist successfully filling the void left by the two late artists. Since breaking through with the Sting-sampling hit single “Lucid Dreams” last year, the Chicago rapper’s angst-ridden teen anthems have resonated strongly with the public as well as peers such as Future (who released a fun collaborative mixtape, ‘WRLD on Drugs’, with him). Juice WRLD – aka Jarad Higgins – makes songs that stick, his vocal dissonance capturing what it feels like to be young and in pain, and feeling a sense of indifference towards authority figures. Aside from the catchy harmonies, he’s also a creative rapper, capable of freestyling for an hour straight and spitting witty bars almost on command. Yet Juice WRLD’s flat first studio album, ‘Goodbye & Good Riddance’, didn’t quite fulfil this obvious potential. Thankfully, with follow-up ‘Death Race For Love’, his songwriting becomes less weighted on sad-sack anthems, as he displays a more impressive sonic range. ‘She’s The One’ (not a Robbie Williams cover, sadly) and ‘Won’t Let Go’ are tender love songs that communicate what it’s like to be on the edge of heartbreak even in the thralls of infatuation, with each showing a deeper level of introspection than you might expect from the artist. The same can be said for the brilliant ‘Empty’, where an inspired Juice WRLD raps about “Losing my sanity in a house up in the hills” and moves against the typical boasts that litter new wave rapper’s rhymes. On “Rider”, Higgins describes himself as the “codeine Cobain”, but the comparison to the Nirvana frontman isn’t as far off as you might think; he shares Kurt Cobain’s ability to exorcise his demons while still managing to sounding effervescent. However, as brilliant and catchy as all these tracks are, the record only truly gets going when Juice WRLD moves outside of his feelings for a second and starts to have some fun. His self-awareness on ‘Big’ is riveting, with lyrics such as “I spent 50K to install a codeine fountain in my estate” poking fun at the excesses of being a modern trap star. The track’s raw, ground-shaking horns recall Kanye’s ‘Blood On the Leaves’, with Juice WRLD riding the beat like Future in his prolific ‘DS2’ days. ‘Syphilis’ is even better, the riot-inducing banger allowing the artist to take on a more aggressive punk-inspired sound and a complex double-time flow, as he references his chameleon-like versatility, pledging: “I can change anything / I’ve got Obama eyes.” It’s obvious Juice WRLD still needs time to grow further as a lyricist, with his metaphors sometimes a little ham-fisted in their delivery. For example, on ‘Maze’, he talks about taking a deposit out of “the bank of life” in a way that’s more than a little cringeworthy. His falsetto can also sometimes sound a little whiney, especially when the backing music is light and airy. Yet Higgins impressively honours old-school rap while taking it in a thrilling new direction. Emo rappers often make a point of disconnecting from the more lyrical old-school rap legends, but Juice WRLD actively embraces them. He closes the album with ‘Make Believe’, which samples 1990s group Pharcyde’s legendary ‘Runnin’, but rather than honour the song’s sardonic lyrics, he pours his heart out about a doomed romance. The track shows how young rappers can honour tradition without losing sense of their own individuality. ‘Death Race For Love’ most recalls XXXTentacion’s equally versatile ‘?’ album, which also moved from tender falsettos to dark, existential screams at a blistering pace. Yet Juice WRLD is far less indulgent than XXX, not getting lost in the idea that he’s a messianic creative. This will be the moment that solidifies his status as one of rap’s most exciting new stars.<doc-sep>The great misfire of ‘Death Race’ is not that the album is too emotional, but rather that Juice WRLD has no idea how to pace his emotions. Photo Credit: Interscope Let me start off this review by saying that I have something in common with Juice WRLD: we both miss Lil Peep. To suggest that Juice’s newest offering, Death Race for Love, is not his attempt at a winding extension of Lil Peep’s Hellboy would be all the way disingenuous. Made in five days, Juice’s sophomore album is just as downtrodden, hip-hop-leaning, indie-obsessed, and drug-laced as Hellboy. The major difference is Juice WRLD brings sing-song melody and a gloss that Lil Peep shied away from until Come Over When You’re Sober. None of this is to say Juice is derivative, just that he knows his lineage. Skyrocketing to the top of the charts—and sitting pretty there for over 40 weeks—with “Lucid Dreams,” there is no question that Juice WRLD understands his neo-emo rap roots. The problem lies in him not knowing how to explore themes beyond his roots. On Death Race’s “Maze,” he suggests his story is “to be continued,” but we never quite get the continuation. As Juice WRLD said in his Billboard profile, he is an imperfect person, and in that same breath, Death Race is an imperfect album. It is without thesis, without clear artistic direction, and most notably without stakes. Despite how good it sounds, the album plays as if we are feeling things just for the sake of feeling them. Juice is not chasing after “Lucid Dreams” in tone, and that is admirable, but we are never told why we should stay in the same emotional range as his major hit. Even when we take a major turn, as on “She’s The One,” and delve into love, we are sonically still in the doldrums. What it lacks in range, Death Race makes up for in convincing emotional performances and an impressive vocal tone that, when not marred by excessive Auto-Tune, has us on Juice WRLD’s team. In particular, his singing on “Empty” and “Robbery” is guttural and technically well done. His voice is catching and we are inclined to hear more. Juice WRLD can carry an impressive note and his singing is altogether evocative enough to have us looking fondly on our “emo phase”s. He does not deal in nostalgia, but the effect is all the same. When Juice raps, too, it’s a thrill. He’s a true spitter, which is easy to forget when the big single is an emo-pop-punk-hip-hop sensation. “Syphilis,” “The Bees Knees,” and “10 Feet” range from rowdy to authentic anthems, boisterous and blown out forays into a sound Juice WRLD should pursue more often. Particularly “10 Feet,” which is the most traditional rap song on the album, proves Juice to be capable of far more than he presents. The great misfire of Death Race is not that the album is too emotional, but rather that Juice WRLD has no idea how to pace his emotions. Going back to “Empty,” we really do begin Death Race in a fascinating place: his drug abuse and broken heart. Yet, while those are compelling topics, there is no setup. Everything is too enigmatic. Who broke his heart? Why is he using? These unanswered questions are missed opportunities to build layers into the album and move the needle on emo rap forward. Juice WRLD is adept at stewing in a feeling, but he cannot stir the pot. Eventually everything inside clumps together. Especially considering the 22-track long runtime, the album begs for Juice WRLD to do something novel in order to keep the record from becoming exhausting. The album is not a failure, but it is a coalsencing of emotion when it should be a fluttering out of feeling. Standout Track: “Empty” Best Bar: “I problem solve with Styrofoam / My heart revolves around a black hole” Favorite Moment: The beat on “10 Feet”<doc-sep>It's been a longtime coming, but the talented Juice WRLD has finally come through with his sophomore studio effort. Already drawing lofty comparisons to Biggie and Jay-Z from a loyal Interscope A&R, Juice WRLD's A Deathrace For Love clocks in at a staggering twenty-two tracks. A number befitting of the streaming era's reigning prince. With a vast array of vibes, Juice's various skills are put on full display. The emo, voice-cracking charm of "Robbery" depicts his aptitude for inebriated love letters, while the hazy "10 Feet" displays his capable flow, oft-revealed through hour-long freestyle sessions. In a respectable move, Juice opts to fly primarily solo, with the lone guest appearances belonging to Brent Fayaiz, Young Thug, and Clever. Dave Kotinsky/Getty Images The subject matter largely centers around his usual favorite topics, which is to say drugs and heartbreak. And yet, in spite of the consistent hardship he seems to face, he remains somewhat of a romantic at heart. Though Juice WRLD's quest for a soul-mate may be prolonged by his dependency on a cornucopia of substances, it remains strangely pure. Endearing, even. It might be difficult for to sympathize with such a self-destructive protagonist, but there's much to unpack throughout the hour-plus Deathrace. Whether it resonates like the love it professes to covet or a tipsy game of Seven Minutes In Heaven...well, that's another beast altogether.<doc-sep>On this week's Feature Album, Juice WRLD builds upon the sad trap he built his status upon but also drives his sound into new territory. “In my vault, I probably have 400 songs.” Juice WRLD has only just released his second album, the 22-track Death Race For Love, but he’s hardly taking his foot off the accelerator. Speaking to triple j’s Ben & Liam ahead of hitting a London studio to record more music for whatever comes next, his tone is less boastful than it is matter-of-fact. “I don’t stop making music.” The 20-year-old born Jarrad Higgins is so prolific because he works so fast. Death Race For Love was recorded in just five days and most tracks were done in just a few takes. He’s best known as an auto-crooner but Juice is also an adept freestyler capable of rapping an hour’s worth of material off the top of his dome. There’s traces of that spontaneity on the album. You can hear him sipping a drink at the start of lead single ‘Robbery’; ‘This a one-take gang song’ he declares at the start of ‘Feeling’. “When I get in the mode, songs just flow out and it’s not forced,” he says. That lightning pace is fitting for a rapper who found success so suddenly, capitalising on the high-speed momentum of his breakout single ‘Lucid Dreams’, an addictive cocktail of tortured romance delivered over the serene guitars of ‘Shape of My Heart’ by Sting, who called the track a “beautiful interpretation” then took 85% of the royalties (Juice WRLD took it in his stride. “Lost millions made millions” he tweeted). Easily one of 2018’s biggest hits, the track’s popularity ballooned far beyond the confines of Soundcloud, reaching a staggering 1.2 billion streams and a 40-week (and counting) streak on the US charts. Here in Australia, it hit 2x Platinum sales and saw Juice performing at Falls Festival to heaving crowds. ‘Lucid Dreams’ also got him signed for a cool $3 million record deal to Interscope (historic home to rap legends like Dr. Dre, Eminem, Kendrick Lamar) and transformed Juice WRLD from just another Chicago high-schooler into the poster boy of Emo rap. Not bad for a song allegedly whipped up in 15 minutes. Speaking of speed, Death Race For Love arrives less than a year after Juice WRLD’s debut album Goodbye & Good Riddance, a Top 10-charter across six countries. It also continues the rapper’s obsession with car-based artwork, albeit upgrading the cartoony sketch of Goodbye with a brilliant homage to PlayStation’s vehicular destruction classic, Twisted Metal. "That was very intentional," Juice confirms. "A piece of my childhood.” Skip YouTube Video FireFox NVDA users - To access the following content, press 'M' to enter the iFrame. What Death Race doesn’t do is simply churn out more of the same. For nearly ever track that follows the ‘Lucid Dreams’ formula, there’s another that strays from it, expanding Juice’s range and showing off a voice with more versatility than his peers that functions in a variety settings. To begin with however, the album plays it safe with ‘Empty’, a natural successor to ‘Lucid Dreams’ from the same producer Nick Mira, who substitutes the dreamy guitars for twinkling piano on a song “about finding your place in this world” Juice tells triple j, “searching your soul for answers when it feels like there’s no answers to find.” So, Juice goes looking for solutions at the bottom of cups of lean and prescription bottles, then vents his lovesickness in the studio. ‘I problem solve with Sytrofoam’ goes the hook on ‘Empty’; ‘Without drugs, I’m losing my logic/These pills and my Pro Tools still got logic’ he raps on ‘Maze’. Lead single ‘Robbery’ and the country-tinged melodies of ‘Flaws and Sins’ (both Mira productions) follow a similar trajectory, although it seems fame and money haven’t made Juice happier. If anything, they’ve only compounded his depression and probably given hm greater access to A-grade narcotics to numb it. “It’s okay ’cause I’m rich / Sike, I’m still sad as a bitch” he rhymes on ‘Fast’, the kind of sad banger that Post Malone or Lil Uzi Vert would’ve killed for. Ditto ‘HeMotions’, on which Juice announces ‘I’m not a drug addict, got it all wrong/I’m just a love addict ‘til my heart gone’, introducing another central theme to the album: after being dumped, he’s found new love. Skip YouTube Video FireFox NVDA users - To access the following content, press 'M' to enter the iFrame. The bright Caribbean pulse of ‘Hear Me Calling’ is “pretty much a love song [about] the relationship I’m currently in” he admits. ‘Desire’ has him imagining shouting her name across ‘hills in the valley’ and ‘across the galaxy’ so that the ‘whole world’s gonna know you love me’ as starry guitars hum in the distance. On ‘She’s The One’ (“one of my favourite songs on the album”), he sounds spellbound rather than faded; serenading the girl of his dreams over a surreal twinkling beat from Hit-Boy. An in-demand producer to the likes of Jay-Z, Kanye, and Drake, Hit-Boy provides some of the album’s best moments because he gives him Juice a platform to flex his rap skills, showing yet another side to him than just the sulking auto-crooner. ‘They think I’m a bitch because they heard the sad songs, that’s a façade/I’m on them niggas that’ll have an atheist screamin’ out to God’ he spits on ‘Out My Way’. He posits himself as the hood Jimi Hendrix on ‘Big’, both artist and pop star: ‘I’ma turn a nigga block to an art project/Picasso, I paint that, where the f**k is the bank at?’ Skip YouTube Video FireFox NVDA users - To access the following content, press 'M' to enter the iFrame. ‘Big’ goes hard but still has an air of mystery about it and with its surprise soul sample and claustrophobic atmosphere, the track could pass for Travis Scott. Juice even goes for his own ‘Sicko Mode’ on ‘The Bees Knees’, the album’s longest track, stitching together a beat switch from Hit-Boy’s murky, chopped groove to No I.D.’s vaporous fog.<doc-sep>
Juice WRLD is a grown-up. The 19-year-old who was drowning young heartbreak in the palliative haze of drugs on “Goodbye & Good Riddance,” his debut album? That was so last summer. When the Chicago rapper broke into the mainstream seemingly out of nowhere in 2018, he efficiently distilled emo rap — one of the Soundcloud generation’s iterations of trap, infused with the moody melodrama of self-pitying anguish — into memorable hooks, particularly on his chart-topping breakout single, “Lucid Dreams.” Elsewhere on “Goodbye & Good Riddance,” listeners found the soundtrack to a breakup made up of largely monotonous trap production buoyed by keen pop-punk sensibilities. Yet Juice’s penchant for ear-worm melodies was burdened throughout by often laughably lovelorn lyrics that resembled the angsty, diaristic scrawl of a teen whose heartache over a months-long relationship’s demise is perceived as the end of the universe. Standouts on the album were lost among this repetitive aura. But the simplicity of his hooks, while petulant, was also part of what made them undeniably catchy. Juice seemed to shift away from this schtick on last fall’s collab record with Future on “WRLD ON DRUGS,” a forgettable and somewhat inexplicable — save for the pair’s shared thirst for the numbing balm of addiction — link-up. But on his second album, “Death Race for Love,” Juice returns in some ways to his brand of sad rap, with all its strengths and weaknesses, while graduating effectively toward some sonic versatility and playfulness. This evolution-in-miniature was teased on “Robbery,” the album’s lead single (which leaked months ago). Juice leans heavily into pop-punk with elongated moans of misery while a gorgeous piano tune separates the track from practically all of “Goodbye & Good Riddance.” On “Death Race,” his strongest, most polished melodies are on display, and the record does feel manufactured to chart as high as possible — and, with a bloated 22 songs, no less. Indeed, Juice even throws in a tired dancehall-tinged pop track with “Hear Me Calling,” along with a serviceable Travis Scott imitation on “Big” — which squanders a delicious sample and beat switch in the middle — to cover all his bases. The agony and drug-love is still there, but is not as heightened or as clearly connected to a breakup. Rather, it’s translated at times into some vague tortured soul character, as on “Empty,” the album’s opener, where Juice proclaims, “I was put here to lead the lost souls / Exhale depression as the wind blows.” The song’s cringe-y lyrics again bog down what Juice does best. He wails infectiously, over beautifully tender piano, but with lines that elicit hard eye-rolls: “My world revolves around a black hole, the same black hole that’s in place of my soul.” Here, depression is less about suffering than about empty affectation and aesthetic; on “Goodbye,” it at least had a source, if naive and arguable on-the-surface. The persistent irony is that these distractingly bad bars come from a rapper who has proven to be such a skilled and quick-witted freestyler. And yet, “Death Race” still shines beyond these moments. Lines are delivered awkwardly, then become earworms: “Your scars are so gorgeous / Ain’t that a weird way to give compliments?” Juice twangs on the guitar-laden “Flaws and Sins.” Light instrumental touches — the piano on “Robbery,” a xylophone underpinning “Feeling” — diversify the usual trap hi-hats, and most surprisingly, Juice showcase a relatively diverse palette of styles. On the standout “Fast,” Juice’s smoothly lackadaisical flow and whisper-singing transitions to the tropics of “Hear Me Calling.” Late in the album, the stellar “ON GOD” — essentially a Young Thug song, featuring Juice WRLD — sees Juice trading flows with Thug with an easy and buoyant chemistry. The subsequent “10 Feet,” which strongly resembles a late-in-the-album contemplative Drake track, sees Juice rapping more straight-laced on an atmospheric sample and dense, hard-hitting 808s. The inventive melodies are consistently present and strengthened even more by his knack for hooks, like “Ring Ring,” a bona fide hit for the genre. But Juice begins to run out his welcome at this point, about two-thirds of the way into 21 full-length songs and one interlude. It can be hard to justify that long an album for most artists, and Juice, while bold in his efforts, doesn’t prove to be compelling enough to keep you engaged, especially with only three features (Brent Faiyaz, Young Thug and Clever appear). But the extended catalogue is sure to guarantee high-impact riches.