You all would have seen the meme already of that Key and Peele sketch of Keegan in a suit screaming ‘Oh, I’ve been waiting for this! I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS!’
Well, that’s me right now! When I woke up this morning for my shift and saw this was out, I was, no lie, doing this exact skit in real life at my work! This is an album that has been in my mind ever since I heard it was coming, and now that it has, best believe before I even took a post-shift breath, I pushed play on this! So let’s talk about it!
So, unless you’re Patrick Star and have been living under a rock, you would be well aware of the ‘Penlordz’ collective. A trio of:
-Fam Ross
-Arsinel
And lastly, Audio Messiah. The only man not to release a studio album until now. Although in saying that, just like the Raekwon ‘Only Built’ effect and how Ghostface essentially made that one a collaboration project, the same process can be said about Audio’s involvement in all the Fam Ross and Arsinel records; he’s always featured, and so it doesn’t really feel that important that he hasn’t dropped his own since. In early Griselda mixtape fashion, the trio was always together, but still, I knew he was talented enough to deserve his own, and now that it’s here, it’s literally made my dream come true!
This is a 14-track record with a 22-minute length. As expected, the collective came together on this one as well, filling any feature spots on the record, but since they are all essentially one mind, they don’t really count as features, more just family.
So, how does this album sound? In short. Unbelievable! In long?
This album reminds me of a mix between ‘Only Built 4 Cuban Lynx’ and ‘Liquid Swords’ from the voice samples to the East Coast style sound loops to the sharing family verse-to-verse style, and the overall gritty and raw production qualities make this sound like you’re taking a time machine back to the golden 90’s era, and they follow the standards and quality as such!
I don’t normally like skits in music, but they incorporate all the narrative and conversational dialogue before or after the actual song, so again, it makes it remind me of those Wu albums as it makes the track as a whole feel that much more cinematic!
What’s interesting is that since Audio has already been killing it on every other Penlordz album, he’s been on, all this album feels like is a continuation or, more so, a confirmation of just how dope he is, and given more time to go off and prove to the world why he and the other two are the very top of the crop right now, I feel this album (as well as the other 5) released by the Penlordz should prove that fact!
This album vibes on the same S-Tier wavelength as the others. Only this trio can pull off the kind of theatrical, crisp, original, and beautiful takes on Hip Hop. They feel focused and zoned in. They are using their best years to tunnel vision on creating what very well could be the perfect discography in the game, and this is just another edition to that.
Overall, this album could very well be the best album of the new quarter! From the dope artwork to the Penlordz chemistry to the absolute genius lyricism and flow by Messiah, this thing has all the makings of a modern-day classic!
Shoutout to the production by
-PenLordz Arsinel
-Gnetics
-KHEYZINE
https://open.spotify.com/album/5PvBHJuGkxtJkGGSN3Chui?si=U1nHnsXuTAqc4QZ919HiTg
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