album review: 'melt my eyez see your future' by denzel curry

I feel like this is an album I’ve been waiting for Denzel Curry to make for some time now.

Because he’s proven time and time again he can make bangers, from the darker street level snapshots on Imperial - which has aged amazingly well, for the record - to the more stylized and experimental side of TA13OO that I still wish I liked as much as everyone else, to the throwback, Miami mixtape side of ZUU which I’d still argue deserves more credit for doing exactly what it’s designed to do. But in every step of the way it’s been hard to escape the feeling that he could be doing more as a lyricist, go a little deeper especially given how blunt his introspection was; he clearly had that potential, but it felt like for all of the fury we were still a step away from getting to it. He certainly had the flows to go there, plus the energy and intensity, but it felt like there was another level that we hadn’t quite seen and that was quite exciting.

So after the Unlocked Kenny Beats collab project which was fine enough for what it was, we started seeing singles for this album, and I was immediately intrigued, because while the songs didn’t quite bang as hard, they had more of a thoughtful, meditative vibe with slightly more abstract lyricism, and that could make for a really cool listen. I wasn’t sure where the production was going to go, given the singles seemed to have a bit of a throwback vibe again, but when you see JPEGMAFIA in the credits alongside Thundercat, it gave me the impression this could go sideways in fascinating ways, and I really wanted to sink my teeth into it… so what did we get?

Well… I think this might just be Denzel Curry’s best album to date and probably one of the best albums of 2022 - not just his most expansive, balanced, and by far his best produced, but also the sort of thoughtful project that doesn’t just showcase that depth that was always lurking just beneath the surface, but also justifies why it may have been just out of view… although with an album like this, I’m not sure that’ll be the case anymore.

Because an album like this isn’t just transitional, it’s transformational, not just in how Denzel Curry structures his flows - fully capable of that intensity but more measured where he’ll unleash it - but also in terms of his cadence, word choice, even command of melody. He comes across as immediately more mature and pensive - partially for as many places as this album calls back to an older brand of alternative hip-hop circa the golden age - but I appreciate how he doesn’t just lodge himself in that territory as a plea for respectability; unlike, say, Danny Brown’s last project, Denzel Curry is fusing the old-school with modern touches, even leaning into trap. In fact, while a lot of folks tend to find ‘X-Wing’ as the most contentious song on the project, I actually really love it, not just for the gorgeous production with the wailing strings and cascades of pianos, but just how well Curry can lean into autotuned crooning while still maintaining his own personality in the bragging; it’s a flex, but with the string of nerdy reference points that pepper the album and remind me of Nostalgic 64, it’s his own which gives the song character. And not for nothing, everyone steps up to deliver: I might have wished for a longer verse from JID on ‘Ain’t No Way’, similar to Thundercat’s abbreviated presence on the g-funk infused ‘The Sound Of Death’, but when Rico Nasty goes off, 6LACK actually drops a really good hook, as does slowthai opposite the breakbeat on ‘Zatoichi’, and then T-Pain steals the entire damn show on ‘Troubles’, it’s impressive!

And not for nothing, the production is absolutely striking and falls into that similar middleground between the old and new while still feeling defiantly like Curry has made it his own. ‘Walkin’ is probably the song that encapsulates this the best - coming off of a perfect transition from the opening track, it might pick up some glassy, old-school boom-bap crunch off the cooing vocal sample and liquid bass, but then the hook comes around and it flips into trap seamlessly! I think a major factor as to why the transitions work so well - beyond the fact that Denzel Curry has always had a great ear for melody and hooks and that’s all over this album, even if some of the songs can feel a bit on the short side - is that the percussion as a whole is some of the best I’ve heard on a rap album in a long time regardless of subgenre. The vintage grooves have swagger and texture, where they have crunch and presence but never overpower the tunefulness of the mix, but when the songs switch to a more contemporary trap vibe the bladed knock maintains that crisp presence. And while you could expect JPEGMAFIA to deliver that sort of production on ‘John Wayne’, especially with how he peppers the song with gunshots opposite that chalky, distorted flip, ‘The Last’ feels like a resurrected song from Imperial in how well it balances its haunted trap tones; same with the off-kilter clank of ‘Troubles’, or how ‘Sanjuro’ feels like it was yanked from the darkest moments of TA13OO, except better mastered to boot. And then there’s ‘Zatoichi’, which I already reviewed on TikTok but has only grown on me since with its breakbeat percussion, windswept distortion, and striking feminine vocals that saturate the melody, as they do across the majority of this album! And given how many samples are flipped and how much this album switches up its groove, it’s the other factor as to why this album has such impeccable flow, where even running for forty-five minutes it feels shorter, to the point where Denzel Curry could have tacked on more than a few more verses and I would have had no issues!

But again, the leap was going to come with content… and where I’m thrilled to say that Denzel Curry did take that leap and is focusing on the bigger picture. Thematically the album’s title is kind of fascinating, because it represents an increased self-awareness of the systems that surround him, where when you are forced to look outside of yourself and contextualize the larger world, it melts and deconstructs your previous perspective, where it doesn’t just showcase what could be your future but also that of those around him. I’m not sure what would have caused that paradigm shift for him - on the very first song, he references a lot of guilt and even a past sexual trauma in which he’s on the long road to heal, and while there’s always been a therapeutic angle going back to TA13OO, this time he’s placing it alongside the conditions of his own success within these systems in the larger world, which reminds me a little of what Armand Hammer explored on Haram. But in embracing deconstruction and that sober second thought, you get some pretty fascinating moments, not just in the sharply pointed critiques of systems that have failed the Black community - and leaders who have failed to teach or uplift those within it - but you’ll get tracks like ‘John Wayne’, where he doesn’t just highlight the power that comes with the gun, but also how he’d be more likely to use it against police. I do question why on a few songs he mentions social media cancelling, given that kind of misses the mark of systemic critique, but all things considered they’re pretty minor, especially as he realizes that real systemic change does not come from posts on social media, and while saying his material is too smart for the radio might be pushing it, he’s not wrong that the sort of systemic critique he’s now pushing is only usually considered seriously by a select group of artists, and even fewer who are given mainstream success. And one thing that I genuinely appreciated is how he outright mentions why his material didn’t go deeper before on ‘Sanjuro’: that sometimes he’s speaking for those who don’t have that depth, and it shouldn’t invalidate their lived in, emotional experience or trauma.

Now keep in mind he did touch on a lot of this on TA13OO, be it his own suicidal impulses, the feelings of distrust and isolation, especially when his story is commodified by rappers who not only did not live that life, but can’t afford the lives they pretend to live, but the framing is less of a nihilistic wallow this time, and that continued trudge forward is a sign of maturity and tangible improvement. He’ll admit that he doesn’t have the bigger answers outside of himself - ‘Zatoichi’ emphasizes how much it can feel like the blind leading the blind, but someone has to do it, and that expands the scope of this album. More than once Denzel Curry highlights not just his age and body of work in comparison to peers, but even legends within the scene, and how he’s now older than many of them lived to be; less as idols, more as inspiration within systems he’s now examining - the Run The Jewels reference was very telling and a great bit of wordplay too. And that takes us to the closing track ‘The Ills’, arguably the most dense song on the album that he freely admits many won’t get, but by far the most revealing, not just in highlighting his struggles with mental health but also in how he frames his mission. Building off of his samurai and lone gunman motifs, to highlight a dishonour he may have committed or vices to which he’s succumbed to which he must correct… but even then, by participating in a corruptive, capitalistic system to find his therapy, he may be dragging more into this nightmare by inspiration. And he exposes the risk of not just engaging with that system, but also how he’s previously flipped a lot of very dark iconography to plumb those depths, where you’re reminded that he’s called himself a black metal terrorist, which might be a true expression of his pain and trauma but will cast him closer to an antihero in a world where he’s all the more cognizant of his actions. And to show he understand the weight of that newfound responsibility, look to the final lines of the second verse, ‘Play the bad guy just to finish the race first / ‘Cause the last guy was nice, but he end up dying of thirst’ - that’s a Kendrick Lamar reference and it’s a dark parallel but one that works. Both men of strict principle aware of their own vices and failures, the leader and good man who spends his art trying to cling to his morals amidst a broken system, and one of a darker stripe who has seen the dreadful cost exacted and indulged openly in that darkness to salve his wounds, but has come out stronger and wiser.

And you know, there may have been a time I wouldn’t put Denzel Curry on that pedestal, but with this album he proved that he’s earned his spot in that conversation. It’s not just amazingly well-produced with a terrific flow, multiple excellent hooks, a lot of sharp wordplay, and a more refined versatility, it shows a wiser MC that still has all of that intensity, just a keener eye of where to deploy it. And yeah, it took me a little longer than I’d like to get to it, but the layers made it worth the expedition - one of the best albums of 2022, extremely high recommendations, and you should check it out!