Death Race For Love

「ルーシッド・ドリームス」で大ブレイクを果たしたシカゴ出身の新鋭ラッパー、ジュース・ワールドの2ndアルバム。

Rolling Stone - 3.5 stars out of 5 -- "'Lucid Dreams' is a song that wants the entire universe to hear it. For Juice WRLD, love is like Jupiter's Great Red Spot, an epic, swirling tempest too powerful for our frail human hearts to comprehend or bear." NME - 4 stars out of 5 -- "DEATH RACE FOR LOVE takes emo rap to inventive new heights..." Pitchfork - "Over 72 minutes, the emo-rap star explores drugs, heartbreak, and the drugs that lead to heartbreak." Billboard - "[R]arely less than highly listenable, and while the most crowd-pleasing cuts all come in the first half, the most interesting fare is saved for the back end."

Chicago rapper Juice WRLD quickly got swept into the emo-rap designation when his 2018 studio debut, Goodbye & Good Riddance, showed up with a richly produced collection of songs about breakups, betrayal, and numbing the pain. Despite a limited emotional range, the album highlighted Juice WRLD's musical dexterity, offering darkly dreamy melodies and druggy textures in complex arrangements that pushed aside standard commercial rap boundaries. Second album Death Race for Love continues this hybrid of lush sonics and desperate feelings. Considerably longer than its predecessor with 22 tracks clocking in at over an hour, the predominant theme remains illuminating different angles of agony. "Empty" opens the album with tortured verses over sweet piano loops, and the hooky "Robbery" starts with Juice WRLD drinking strong liquor before scream-crying lyrics about getting his heart handed to him in a paper bag. Pain turns to anger quickly on "Syphilis," with threatening verses yelled through a filter of distortion. Moods shift quickly, going from this overblown track into the syrupy acoustic guitars of "Who Shot Cupid?" and then directly into the almost pop rock tones of "Ring Ring." A Young Thug feature on the bouncing "ON GOD" starts to illuminate the two faces of Death Race for Love. There's the devastated outcry of heartbroken songs like the Daniel Caesar-sampling "10 Feet" and the dark swagger of ominous bangers like "Out My Way." ~ Fred Thomas|

スティングの名曲をサンプリングした"Lucid Dreams"の大ヒットで一躍その名を広めた若きラッパーが短いスパンで放った2作目。今作でもブルージーなムードの歌声を武器とするラップ・スタイルとエモめなリリック、キャッチーなメロディーセンスは健在だ。ピアノの切ない旋律が印象的なトラックに恋愛～失恋をテーマにシャウトするようなラップを聴かせた先行曲"Robbery"を筆頭に、ファーサイド"Runnin'"と同ネタを用いた"Make Believe"ではエミネムの狂気を孕んだ名曲"Stan"がリリックに綴られるなど、内省的な楽曲を中心に構成されている。ボーイ・ワンダやヒット・ボーイらヒットメイカーも交えてアップグレードされた制作布陣も盤石で、見事に全米チャート1位を獲得済み。
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