Striking synths, heavy bass and trap rhythms back up the minimalist yet impactful soundscapes of TRVPstar’s fearlessly outspoken project Cold Summer!
Featuring creatively weighty production from the moment Menace starts thing up, the album brings in warring vocals of high-passion and angst united for a gritty, unpredictable listen. There’s both a theatrical and freestyle energy to proceedings, making the track an aptly-titled opener and a strong indication of the style to follow.
Releasing on TRVPstar’s birthday, Cold Summer! quickly progresses from celebratory and bold, to insightful and open regarding the rapper’s own journey. It’s an intensely explicit collection, loaded with the kind of angry bars and performances that ultimately scream out on behalf of anyone feeling the same level of disarray and disconnection in the modern world.
Outta Bounds is all of this, just one minute and fifteen seconds of outbursts but recognisable within the walls of the album for that fearlessly scornful TRVPstar sound.
Creative sound-play reaches new peaks for the retro synths and space utilised in Too Much! – that theatrical aspect again tips its hat to the dramatic-style albums of a simpler era, and the haunting Lazy! afterwards hits with similar energy but more notable production effects on the voices.
Ultimately branching out in terms of what hip hop and trap music can be, Cold Summer! highlights a love for the process as well as an emotional desire to express honesty and even subtle vulnerabilities. Exotic acts as a fine example of the latter, brief again but thoughtful and provocative in its quietness. Then there’s the anthemic core and story of Broke, blurring the lines again between carefree and purposeful.
Every track on Cold Summer! is shorter than average, barely two-minutes in most cases, but always they feel relevant to the overall mood. Through PandaFit and She Like I Move Part 2 we get that contrast between intensity and calm, with the still unmistakable vocal stylings akin to the TRVPstar approach.
Wrapping things up is the chaotic and colourful Walkin IT, hypnotic with its spiraling musicality and lyrically devoted to the shock factor and listing format so distinctly a part of the entire album.
It’s a performative release, simple yet impossible to ignore, and it brings through a new flavor of trap that could, in some ways, be thought to be the anti-trap or new-metal take on the future of the genre.
Grab Cold Summer! via Apple. Check out TRVPstar on Instagram.