Dropout Kings
Yokai
Napalm Records
An emotional return from Dropout Kings as the voice you hear on this album is no longer with us physically, but his spirit lives on in this record. Adam Ramey sadly passed away shortly after finishing his parts on this album and as such this album is his swansong.
What a send-off it is though.
The rhymes and melodies delivered alongside co vocalist William Lauderdale inside the grooves and general bounce and flow of this record are expertly on point with big soaring choruses that feel genuinely impassioned like on the fantastic ‘Brace Yourself’. Opener ‘Black Sheep’ will have you bouncing like it’s 1999 and the long promised new wave of ‘Nu Metal’ seems like a genuinely exciting prospect. The hip hop elements on this album as displayed on ‘Baka’ are as good as any contemporary hip hop out there, this is clearly a band who do their homework, far from dropouts I’d say. ‘FTW’ has plenty of down tuned heft amongst the name checking verses. Elsewhere tracks like ‘Devil Fruit’ and the closing dual hit of ‘Eye Bleach’ and ‘Deadname’ assure that Adam’s legacy will live on in these eternally catchy hooks and this moving tribute to man with the potential voice of a main stage headliner that was taken far too soon.
Review by George Miller