Yeat: Lyfë EP Review

Review of Yeat Lyfë EP

Yeat levitates all over his new project, chanting his mantra of fashion, pills and fast cars over a series of trippy, high-octane instrumentals.

In the effort of trying to create an interesting and unique aesthetic, Yeat himself has become somewhat of a trendsetter. From his use of gothic imagery, to even creating his own words, he has built up a huge cult-like fanbase that loves pretty much anything he puts out. And whilst he talks about the same things on every song, his unpredictable cadence and slurred delivery is nearly as addictive as the pills he loves to croon about.

As opposed to the bloated track-list of his previous album “2 Alive”, Lyfe is relatively water-tight with only 12 songs and a runtime of 30 minutes. This shortened time frame allows for more consistent stand out moments, rather than having to wade through 6 or 7 filler songs.

“Flawless”, the EP’s first song, falls into that standout category, opening with an eery ritualistic chant being whispered to the listener as Yeat’s trademark gothic bells toll in the background. Once the drums kick in Yeat barges through the instrumental like a bull in a China shop, screeching every bar as he effortlessly glides over the beat.

Lil Uzi Vert comes in after Yeat’s performance, starting off a little bit shaky, but soon comes into his own once he finds the footing for his flow. As the song progresses it’s clear why Yeat would opt for Uzi to take over the track instead of himself, his high-pitch, machine gun flow, maintains the intensity that the instrumental fights to uphold.

“Wat It Feel Lyke”, feels like another gift created from the twin-like partnership Yeat and, producer BNYX have formed. The components that create the instrumental are so creative and interesting to listen to it’s unreal. Glistening melodies are sprinkled over the first few seconds of the track until the bass violently crash lands and buries itself within the song. Yeat vocally adds to the instrumental also, swooning and swaying over the chorus like he’s some kind of ghost or alien entity.

After, “Wat It Feel Lyke”, Yeat goes on a four-track run of great darkly atmospheric songs, each with its own special moments. On “Got it all”, he uses his classic technique of building up the tension just to let it all out in a single memorable flair, screaming “skrrrrt” at the top of his lungs like a demon being exorcized

“Can’t stop it”, feels straight up satanic as Yeat haunts the track with his ghoulish adlibs that wail endlessly throughout the hook, the beat provides an angsty, gothic layer to the song with a looped guitar sample and emo rock drums that sound like they’re from the early 2000’s.

Yeat’s lyrics on the other hand, almost fall into complete gibberish in this song, using words like “tanky” and “banky” 3 or 4 times with no context to what either of the terms means, adding to the strange glossary of “twizz” speak that Yeat’s core fans have grown accustomed to.

“Talk”, the lead single for the EP, to me is the last worthwhile song on the tracklist. The police sirens sounding off as concertgoers describe the madness they saw at one of Yeat’s shows is the best song opening on the EP, the beat itself swerves and crashes into the forefront of the listener’s ear, again dark gothic melodies being the central focus. Lyrics-wise, Yeat, utilises a mantra-style flow repeating lines like “Jump out at the show!” and “All we do is just go number 1!”, like an inner demon ear-worming its way into your conscious.

However, the EP peaks here, the four songs after “Talk” aren’t all that memorable and don’t do anything new or unique in the way that the first half of the EP does. “System” has a great beat but vocally nothing interesting is going and “Killin em” feels too empty and basic for it to be a good Yeat song. Still, 4 out of 12 isn’t bad, that’s 8 very solid Yeat songs that will get you raging out of your seat.

To conclude, as expected Yeat only seems to be improving, my complaint with his last project was that he struggled to see what songs he should keep and what songs he shouldn’t, which in turn created a 20-track monster that was bloated with filler we didn’t need to hear. On Lyfe, gladly, he whittles it down to the very best and halves the run time, making the project more infectious than tiring.

SCORE/Good: The high-energy production snared with Yeat’s demonic presence perpetuates the dark-rage aesthetic that he’s bringing to the rap scene.

[I rank albums on a scale of Poor, Good, Excellent, and Outstanding]

Written by Jake Campbell