For fucks sakes. Just when I thought I'd formed an opinion on this project, Eminem got bored and decided he'd sate the ravenous hunger of the angry DatPiff commenters with another acapella verse. Typical. Here we have D12's first proper release in about 11 years, coming fresh off a few news reports that the group had finally hit the studio once again in 2014, intent on finally putting out some new material. Bizarre re-joined after a brief period of time out of the group, Denaun decided he'd work with them anyway, and the ghost of Proof will surely be putting his headphones on once again. (RIP Big Proof.)
This project isn't that bad. Which is surprising, but I guess also isn't that surprising, because we just recently had an album release after 16 years of development hell, and it was bloody good. I've always thought this, even after I stopped listening to D12, which was about two years ago now - Swifty and Kuniva are brilliant rappers. The songwriting might not always be there, but the saving grace of the sans-Eminem D12 (and also this very mixtape) is the capability of these two in particular, and their flows have not aged a bit. Their verses could very well be off-cuts from the original Devils Night, with McVay sounding just as menacing and threatening, and Kuniva packing just as much charisma. Bizarre can hold his own two, but most of the time you're either too busy laughing or cringing at the lyrics rather than paying attention to the delivery. Unfortunately that's all really to be said about each main rapper, because the rest of the group hardly show up. Denaun does a hook and two or three verses, which definitely aren't bad but aren't nearly as good as his, in my opinion, best verse, from 2000's Under The Influence (This very song gets a shout out towards the end of the tape, too). And Eminem - oh, Eminem - a read a RapGenius comment on the "Devils Night Mixtape Intro" which pretty much said "this sounds like the group called up Eminem after the mixtape release and said "we need you on the tape man the fans are going crazy!!" and this is what he freestyled off the top over the phone lol" which is pretty much bang on. I had this mixtape on my iTunes literally one minute after it dropped, but about nine hours later I had to re-download the whole damn thing to add the two new songs onto it. I wonder where "Build With You" was for the first release? Maybe a sample cleared at the last minute? If that's the case, then fuck whoever cleared the sample. Cause the song is fucking unlistenable, and ruins the whole fucking end of the mixtape, which wasn't even that good to begin with. Here's a list of the terrible songs: "D.T.U.", "Build With You", and "Stay High". If you aren't pedantic like me and absolutely have to listen to every song on an album back to front, I'd say avoid these. For me, the hooks are absolute turn-offs, with King Gordy shouting like he's Lil Jon, T3 of Slum Village crooning the second most disgusting hook I've heard in rap (interestingly, the first most disgusting is on Devils Night, being the one, the only, "Nasty Mind") and Bizarre lazily delivering an easily dismissable chorus to unfortunately end the album on a low key, respectively. But that's definitely not to take away from the high points on here, which include both Crooked I and Royce Da 5'9"'s features, the production on quite a few of the songs here, and a few of the other hooks, which are actually strangely hypnotic, sleek and smooth to listen to, once you get used to them. Of course, I'm talking about Denaun's hook on "Steel Ill" which I didn't like at first, but a few listens later I started to get more attached to it. Crooked drops a pretty stock-standard Crooked verse, and considering stock-standard Crooked verses are pretty damn good, what with his lyrical agility, there's no complaints on that front. Royce snatches the microphone for a solid minute and a half, easily the longest verse to be found here, and it's another great verse we've had from Royce since PRhyme dropped. (If I'd been doing this back in December 2014, you'd know that PRhyme is one of my favourite rap albums, period) his verses on the Shady Cxpher, Shady XV Bad Meets Evil songs and Southpaw Soundtrack Bad Meets Evil songs weren't really that amazing in my opinion, but his verse off the PRhyme song on the same Southpaw album was dope, so I began questioning his non-PRhyme output, but he comes through well with it here. Bizarre started the mixtape by name-dropping the biggest rapper in the game right now, and ends the same verse with a line that had me legitimately laughing my ass off; "2016, I'll no longer be a man. Shoutout the Bruce Jenners, man" Not because I find the Jenner topic funny at all, but because Bizarre isn't any different to how he used to be, which is great. However, once we hit the third Bruce Jenner joke,, they've gotten old very quickly. And Lazarus's take on it is just in bad taste; "expose the bitch in you like Caitlyn Jenner" come on, dude, really? And we can't forget DJ Whoo Kid. Whooooo, KIIIIIIIIIIIIIIID! The inevitable, unfortunate, and in my opinion thoroughly annoying and completely pointless DJ self-plugs are of course scattered all over the album, some in places that aren't too bad, and some that in places that are just stupid. Em, you really should have fired him after the pre-Shady XV compilation mixtape, because then he wouldn't have so incredibly rudely interrupted your acapella verse. Seriously, it's the most ridiculous place to put one of those plugs - at the start or end of a song, or during a hook, sure, but not mid-fucking-verse. Whoo Kid ain't got no manners. On the Slaughterhouse mixtape House Rules, the "DatPiff dot com, world premier" were placed just right and infrequently enough that I didn't even notice them the first time I listened to that tape, and to me are now part of the songs, mixed in just right so they don't stick out like sore thumbs. On here, that's the case sometimes, but more often than not, you'll be left thinking "jesus christ, not again" whenever DJ Whoo Kid gets bored enough to shout his name out again. I'm not sure why D12 needed a DJ to host this - I'm not sure why anyone does, to be honest - but he's there, and he's annoying. I guess we have to live with it. All in all, The Devils Night Mixtape definitely isn't a bad mixtape. It holds a lot of promise for the future, and the group have promised that more music is coming, which is good news. I feel they can definitely improve on this - with the right songwriting, I definitely feel they could pull off a very significant album. One that all my favourite reviewers might actually review this time. This mixtape probably won't be the soundtrack to my 2015 southern hemisphere summer, but it's still definitely worth checking out. 6.5/10 |
201820162015Scores0-30 = Bad
31-49 = Sub-par 50-60 = Average 61-70 = Decent 71-80 = Good 81-89 = Great 90-99 = Incredible 100 = Perfect Archives
September 2018
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