As life keeps moving forward, one of the only things that we can do is to keep walking in an effort to keep up while taking a moment to reflect on ourselves.
“Melt My Eyez See Your Future” is the fifth album from Florida rapper Denzel Curry. It follows his 2019 album “ZUU” as well as his 2020 “Unlocked” collaboration with producer Kenny Beats.
In a more somber direction, Denzel Curry delivers an excellent album with “Melt My Eyez See Your Future.” It marks his progression as an artist and a person as he continues to deliver incredible music.
Denzel Curry guides listeners through 14 songs running a little over 45 minutes. The songs vary in length, with some being over four minutes and others barely hitting two and a half minutes. Every song feels created with precision and length in mind, and they all flow into one another, creating a cohesive and consistent album.
Denzel Curry’s rapping is on point and on beat. He stays consistent throughout the entirety of the album while matching the energy of each individual song. His pace is slightly different from his previous albums, but it’s in service to the direction of this album. It’s a little slower, but still incredibly dense with clever rhymes and deeper meanings.
As to the lyrics, Curry covers a variety of topics. He raps about moving forward, lawlessness, problems with the government, tapping into God and the soul, balancing relationships — the day ones especially — and trying to navigate the current environment as a Black man. He does so with astute observations of everything around him, along with how he fits into the world.
He does a fantastic job at discussing these topics and putting them right in the listener’s face for them to confront alongside him. At the same time, he is moving towards the future, both generally and as a person. It’s a personal, mature and meditative album from Curry. He puts himself and everything he’s been thinking about and experiencing, including his career, into this album.
This fits within the western and samurai influences that are placed throughout the album. Curry references famous filmmakers, characters and franchises including Akira Kurosawa, “Star Wars,” “Cowboy Bebop,” John Wayne and Zatoichi — the latter two act as the names of songs — among others. He uses these almost mythic people and pieces of media to reinforce his notion of navigating an environment that is actively fighting against him and living in an almost lawless land. It’s not just a man versus man situation, but man versus nature as well while he paves his own future.
The lone cowboy or samurai notion works within the music itself. The instrumentals incorporate his bass and beats from his previous albums along with some slower, lo-fi-sounding instruments. Although still present, the hypnotic beats are backed with pianos, static laced samples and almost spacey synthesizers, all while bringing the neo-soul sound into it as well. These match the tone of the album, making it feel as if you’re listening to it while reflecting on the world during a rainy afternoon.
This is well established with the opening tracks “Melt Session #1” featuring Robert Glasper and “Walkin.” These songs inform the listener about the type of album that Curry has crafted, along with how different it will be compared to his previous body of work.
However, there are several tone and beat switches throughout the album, and they all fit together seamlessly. The best example of this is the transition between “Mental” which features Saul Williams and Bridget Perez to “Troubles” which features T-Pain. It goes from the slower and beautiful “Mental” to the faster-paced “Troubles” with an excellent transition between them.
In turn, this builds towards “Ain’t No Way” which features 6LACK, Rico Nasty, JID, Jasiah and Powers Pleasant. This song not only uses all of its features well — with beats that match their flows — but continues to help the album build towards the second half of it. While still matching the tone of the album and its lyrics, the second half features faster, heavier and harder-hitting songs. The beauty of it lies in the natural ramp-up to this tonal transition, with it acting as a cathartic release of the underlying frustrations and potential solutions to these issues that persists throughout the album.
This is especially felt on “The Smell of Death,” “Sanjuro” with 454 and “Zatoichi” with Slowthai. This three-song progression moves quickly and throws so many punches it’s almost hard to keep up, all while continuing to utilize the features to its benefit. It’s an excellent song sequence, which is capped off with the fantastic “The Ills” as the album’s fitting closer. It flows between these beats, tones and instrumentals with ease, making the entire album work.
“Melt My Eyes See Your Future” is another great album from Denzel Curry. It’s a slower and more meditative work compared to his previous records, but it matches the tone, themes and lyrics that Curry interlaces throughout the album.
This album acts as a transitional piece within Curry’s discography. It marks a change for him as a musician and as a person, growing and changing as the world alters every day. It’s much more personal and less intense than his other albums in terms of sound, but its true intensity lies in the lyrics and topics that Curry brings attention to.
In that vein, it acts as the soundtrack for the man with no name, the cowboy that rides off towards the sunset, the samurai drifting off to the next village, the starship pilot that flies through the stars and the person that doesn’t know what the future holds. It’s about facing terrible atrocities that could alter someone’s life at a moment’s notice, but trying to be as prepared as possible for whatever may happen while working on yourself at the same time.
That’s why this album is so personal, as it’s Denzel Curry’s way of expressing his mentality in relation to these aspects. He’s bringing awareness while pushing forward to an unknown future, and he does so beautifully.
