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Special Event: atrlcritic | Ed Sheeran's new songs after the upgrade
Member Since: 1/4/2014
Posts: 3,221
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Heavy Metal and Reflective
After a significant career change most artists attempt to make a statement with their follow-up release. Heavy Metal & Reflective is more like a rocket launcher. She raps with a sense of urgency as if she hears the criticism and is desperate to prove that shes as good as her critics wish she wasn't. Her unrivaled "Zig-zag" flow is on full display as she dances through lyrics like "I be V.I.P, I been knew cheddar, You be guest list. I be P.Y.T, you Billie Jean, you been that ex bitch" with dizzying alliteration and grace. The strength of Heavy Metal doesn't lie a catchy hook or witty one liners, but lies in Azealia's continuous refusal to conform to the top 40 formula. The motorcycle engines, the interludes, and the "freaky tickle cherry" tongue twisters all contribute to create something that is truly unique and is a welcomed, refreshing, departure from the West Coast influenced rap scene that has dominated the summer thus far.
9/10
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Member Since: 5/16/2012
Posts: 12,486
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"Heavy Metal and Reflective" by Azealia Banks
Neither "Yung Rapunxel" or "ATM Jam" clicked right away for me, so I assumed the same would occur with "Heavy Metal and Reflective". With my first listen of "Yung Rapunxel", it felt like a try hard attempt at going against what mainstream music was doing at the time. "ATM Jam", on the other hand, sounded like a try hard attempt at appealing to the masses.
I was happy to find that "Heavy Metal and Reflective" clicked instantly for me. After close to two years of messy and unnecessary feuds, constant and lengthy delays, and two polarizing single choices, the song is a much needed reminder of who Azealia Banks is as an artist: a talented, flow-centric rapper with a love for quick delivery, dark and creepy production, and multisyllabic words.
Lil' Internet did a great job with the production, especially with that infectious clap-like beat which makes me shake my ass every time it comes on. "Yung Rapunxel", which he also produced, took a couple months to really grow on me and now I'm really in love with it and "Heavy Metal and Reflective". He and Azealia both have a unique, sinister style and so they mesh together very well.
Some of the things I'm not fond of concerning the track include the length (right as the song ended, I was expecting to hear a "212"-esque "Ayo" interlude/bridge with a final explosive chorus) and, as usual, the combination of her flow and the production is very distracting from the lyrical content. While I still hope there will be more tracks on her debut album Broke With Expensive Taste that find the right balance between lyrics, flow, and production, I think this track is great for what it is and it is a needed reminder about who Azealia Banks is as an artist.
Score: 7/10
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Member Since: 1/1/2014
Posts: 43,331
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The Lowdown: Monotonous mumbling, a perplexing instrumental, and an uninspired delivery make for a lousy rap song.
I really wish I could give a good review here. I'm tired of giving bad reviews because it seems like I don't like any songs. But to be completely honest, Heavy Metal and Reflective is a complete snoozefest, despite clocking in at just two minutes and thirty-one seconds. The track starts rather confusingly with an eerie and haunting but boring beat, made up of mostly tacky electronic effects. Azealia Banks then begins to deadpan over the beat. She sounds like she is mumbling and doesn't seem to want to rap on this track. After around 30 seconds I was completely bored and her voice became an annoying droning noise in my head. Her rap, though lyrically clever, was extremely safe and monotonous. By the time a minute and a half rolls around it feels like it's been four minutes and the background electronic effects are like bees buzzing in my ear. Though it is original, this song is not catchy, not memorable at all, very annoying, way too monotonous, and as a result pretty awful. There's really not much else to say.
Reviews:
Drake - 0 to 100 / The Catch Up (4.0)
La Roux - Trouble In Paradise (2.3)
Azealia Banks - Heavy Metal and Reflective (2.0)
Jessie J, Ariana Grande, & Nicki Minaj - Bang Bang (5.8)
Hilary Duff - Chasing The Sun (0.5)
Tony Bennett & Lady Gaga - Anything Goes (4.9)
Nicki Minaj - Anaconda (2.0)
Beyoncé f/Nicki Minaj - ***Flawless Remix (3.7)
Pixie Lott - Pixie Lott (6.0)
FKA Twigs - LP1 (1.7)
Hilary Duff - All About You (4.1)
Taylor Swift - Shake It Off (7.1)
Charli XCX - Break The Rules (4.6)
Ariana Grande - My Everything (5.2)
Maroon 5 - V (5.4)
Banks - Goddess (8.2)
Calvin Harris f/John Newman - Blame (8.6)
Lorde - Yellow Flicker Beat (8.8)
Fergie - L.A.LOVE (la la) (2.5)
LIGHTS - Little Machines (6.7)
One Direction - Steal My Girl (2.0)
Carrie Underwood - Something In The Water (5.3)
Gwen Stefani - Baby Don't Lie (5.4)
Iggy Azalea f/MŘ - Beg For It (7.7)
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Banned
Member Since: 11/7/2011
Posts: 36,781
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Quote:
Originally posted by alexanderao
The Lowdown: Monotonous mumbling, a perplexing instrumental, and an uninspired delivery make for a lousy rap song.
I really wish I could give a good review here. I'm tired of giving bad reviews because it seems like I don't like any songs. But to be completely honest, Heavy Metal and Reflective is a complete snoozefest, despite clocking in at just two minutes and thirty-one seconds. The track starts rather confusingly with an eerie and haunting but boring beat, made up of mostly tacky electronic effects. Azealia Banks then begins to deadpan over the beat. She sounds like she is mumbling and doesn't seem to want to rap on this track. After around 30 seconds I was completely bored and her voice became an annoying droning noise in my head. Her rap, though lyrically clever, was extremely safe and monotonous. By the time a minute and a half rolls around it feels like it's been four minutes and the background electronic effects are like bees buzzing in my ear. Though it is original, this song is not catchy, not memorable at all, very annoying, way too monotonous, and as a result pretty awful. There's really not much else to say.
Reviews:
Drake - 0 to 100 / The Catch Up (4.0)
La Roux - Trouble In Paradise (2.3)
Azealia Banks - Heavy Metal and Reflective (2.0)
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can we ban you from giving reviews. all of yours have been v negative
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Member Since: 1/1/2014
Posts: 43,331
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Quote:
Originally posted by Jax
can we ban you from giving reviews. all of yours have been v negative
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If we were to review something like Rude, Latch, Summer, Boom Clap, Wasted, Rather Be, A Sky Full Of Stars, Habits, Love Runs Out, Black Widow, Believe Me, Cool Kids, Bailando, Na Na, or 2 On (just to give a few examples) I would give positive reviews.
Don't worry, there are plenty of songs I love.
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Banned
Member Since: 6/25/2011
Posts: 37,192
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She's our very own Armond White 
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Member Since: 8/19/2013
Posts: 26,488
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Quote:
Originally posted by alexanderao
The Lowdown: Monotonous mumbling, a perplexing instrumental, and an uninspired delivery make for a lousy rap song.
I really wish I could give a good review here. I'm tired of giving bad reviews because it seems like I don't like any songs. But to be completely honest, Heavy Metal and Reflective is a complete snoozefest, despite clocking in at just two minutes and thirty-one seconds. The track starts rather confusingly with an eerie and haunting but boring beat, made up of mostly tacky electronic effects. Azealia Banks then begins to deadpan over the beat. She sounds like she is mumbling and doesn't seem to want to rap on this track. After around 30 seconds I was completely bored and her voice became an annoying droning noise in my head. Her rap, though lyrically clever, was extremely safe and monotonous. By the time a minute and a half rolls around it feels like it's been four minutes and the background electronic effects are like bees buzzing in my ear. Though it is original, this song is not catchy, not memorable at all, very annoying, way too monotonous, and as a result pretty awful. There's really not much else to say.
Reviews:
Drake - 0 to 100 / The Catch Up (4.0)
La Roux - Trouble In Paradise (2.3)
Azealia Banks - Heavy Metal and Reflective (2.0)
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Quote:
Originally posted by ATRL Feedback
Rules
– Absolutely no trolling. We want you to have fun and be creative with your reviews, but the rules of ATRL still apply.
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Member Since: 12/4/2010
Posts: 37,894
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Quote:
Originally posted by jpow
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I don't see the troll!
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Member Since: 3/24/2012
Posts: 15,013
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HEAVY METAL & REFLECTIVE
Fresh out of a split with her record label, Azealia Banks wastes no time getting her new 'Heavy Metal & Reflective' online. The track opens with a beat almost reminiscent of a video game boss battle, shortly after Azealia starts rapping in a very strong, yet monotonous voice that shows true power. She dominates the beat with her flow. Although the song is two minutes and thirty seconds long, and despite it fails to completely go anywhere, it's pretty good for what it is. It's definitely no '1991' but it's also definitely not 'ATM Jam'. It's a good "come back" song, but perhaps she could have released something better, and left this for the album.
Overall I'd give it a 7.5 out of 10
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Member Since: 11/8/2011
Posts: 31,648
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You need to add PARTYNEXTDOOR TWO and A Place Like This - EP by Majid Jordan to the list of albums. 
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Member Since: 4/7/2009
Posts: 34,961
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Member Since: 5/6/2012
Posts: 15,354
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Azealia Banks - "Heavy Metal and Reflective"
Miss Amor's new single "Heavy Metal and Reflective" does exactly what I'm sure Azealia intended to do - deliver me with a cute buzz banger that leaves me craving for more. I'm stoked that Lil Internet produced the track - his beat does not disappoint and I'm thrilled Azealia used it for any part of her album. The lyrics are fire and although yes, her vocal is staler than I'd prefer, the song comes together to be that confident banger that I needed to hear from AB. Although her delivery wasn't edgy consistently, there are a few lyrics where she alters her tone and completely does it for me. The bridge absolutely does it for me, and I'm absolutely intrigued to see the music video. And as always... I NEED the album! This is no "Yung Rapunxel" though, but it's great enough to keep me completely satisfied 'til September when I believe she should release a new single. Love it Azealia 
8/10
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Member Since: 1/1/2014
Posts: 292
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“I be looking very heavy metal and reflective.” A heck of a line to build a song around.
Give it to twenty of the better emcees in the game right now, and hopefully they could each come up with one or two lines similar in rhyme and rhythm. The cream of the crop could perhaps produce a half-dozen. Azealia, on the other hand, spits nothing but this intricate flow (with little cheating—and even the cheats [the Gollum-esque "breasts-es" and "Moëts-es"] are their own delight) for an entire track. And make no mistake that it brings about some of her best lyrics in ages.
While many would care to pretend that 2014 Azealia Banks is not the same person behind the acclaimed 1991 EP, you can rest assured she is. She knows how to produce effortless bops brimming over with subtleties and smooth transitions and quotable quips. But that shot of her flipping off the camera from the back of her motorcycle, seen in a snippet from the forthcoming HM&R video? That wasn't just directed at Interscope and Polydor—that's a warning shot fired across the bow of all the bandwagoners ready to hop on her #kunt again now that she's releasing new music. To paraphrase a recent post on ATRL: if you don't like Azealia at her “Yung Rapunxel” and “Count Contessa,” you don't deserve her at her “Liquorice.”
Let's talk about those two 2013 tracks… People wanted a follow-up to 212? Pretty AB teased just that before proceeding to launch into the screamo YR hook that drove casual listeners away in herds. Lovers of Fantasea wanted more breezy poolside bops? Azealia dropped a cut from Fantasea II that was bewildering in its monotony and strange telling of “the d*ke who won the fist fight with Muscle Mike.” To put it bluntly, Ms. Banks is perhaps the most commercially successful anti-commercial artist out there right now. (And proves it by collabing with musicians like Ariel Pink, known for recording on home equipment to make his music sound as lo-fi as possible.)
In this context, HM&R starts to make a lot more sense. It's the comeback track designed not to lure in long-lost fans but to scare them further away. It's that middle finger to the blogs more interested in misreporting her Twitter beefs than in putting out accurate info about her upcoming releases. She's going to experiment on her own terms, with no need to hold the listener's hand with a soft-peddled hook, a climactic ending, or any sort of Lazy Jay-style breakdown.
What we have instead is in fact a curious blend of YR and CC's best sensibilities: the frenetic witch-hop breakdown of Lil Internet's production, and the lyrical dynamism of CC's—yes— monotony. Zee Zee has some of the most varied flow in the rap game; do you honestly think she doesn't know what's she doing by releasing two minutes and thirty seconds of the same flow delivered in the same low-pitched voice?? More importantly: what does it mean to rap monotonously?
Azealia has expressed a strong interest recently in Lewis Carroll and literary nonsense. Which is to say, if you want her bars to tell a story, she'll make sure it's about a man named Wallace with a Rottweiler's head. If you want lyrics grounded in the reality of daily existence, she'll spit a line that sounds ripped straight out of Alice in Wonderland like “who was fooding this fish?” This isn't the only way to play with listener's expectations of what rap lyrics are, though: there's also the all-important delivery. How will the audience distinguish amongst lines when everything is presented the same way? What elements will stand out from that droning tone, and what others will flow together more seamlessly than was before possible? Without the cues of rise-and-fall and fast-and-slow so typical in the genre, we're thrown quickly off-kilter and into the arms of unexpected new charms.
The flow of HM&R, then, is one of the song's key successes (or keys to success): suddenly, Azealia's stark lyricism ( "I be with the pedi in the puddle reminiscing"!!!) is alone in the cold of that throbbing beat and has to be actively wrestled to the ground by the listener through protracted effort. Will it be better as an album track than as a standalone effort? Possibly. Is it peculiar (and telling) that Lil Bambi's follow-up to the Lil Internet-produced lead single was the other Lil Internet-produced track off the album? Assuredly! But rumors of Azealia's death are, unsurprisingly, greatly exaggerated. We should be thrilled she's provided us with such a challenging listening opportunity, and look forward to a Broke with Expensive Taste that I guarantee will be as filled with variety and experimentation as all of the Head Negress's career thus far.
Wanna bet, bitch?
9/10
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Banned
Member Since: 4/13/2011
Posts: 18,738
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the nerve of some of these reviews. let me play
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Banned
Member Since: 1/1/2014
Posts: 24,153
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Quote:
Originally posted by maiko
the nerve of some of these reviews. let me play
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+1
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Member Since: 12/15/2011
Posts: 4,771
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Azealia Banks - Heavy Metal & Reflective
Azealia Banks returns with new solo single after almost 1 year break. Song called "Heavy Metal & Reflective". And yeah, it's "heavy" for radio and for many pop fans. So HM&R sounds more like Yung Rapunxel than radio-friendly ATM Jam. Lyrics aren't interesting as 212 or Liquorice lyrics but HM&R has some cool lines ("I be P.Y.T, you Billie Jean, you been that ex bitch!", for example). Azealia raps monotony but song isn't boring. How you can call song "boring" when its beat changes 2 times in 30 seconds? Instrumental, that was done by Lil Internet, sounds experemental and fresh. It has even Lex Luger & A-Trak collab project's vibe. In fact, HM&R could be even worse with different flow. Song's length is short, that's why song more looks like teaser track from album.
For fans of: Azealia Banks - Yung Rapunxel, Low Pros feat. Travi$ Scott - 100 Bottles, Rustie feat. Danny Brown - Attak
8,5/10
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Member Since: 10/2/2011
Posts: 43,174
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^I love how you give suggestions at the end of your reviews too.
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Member Since: 12/15/2011
Posts: 4,771
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Quote:
Originally posted by Superiore
^I love how you give suggestions at the end of your reviews too.
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thank you 
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Member Since: 12/15/2011
Posts: 4,771
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Quote:
Originally posted by Αnt
You need to add PARTYNEXTDOOR TWO and A Place Like This - EP by Majid Jordan to the list of albums. |
I would like to review it 
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Member Since: 10/2/2011
Posts: 43,174
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Are we also gonna review Anything Goes? So many single releases 
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