Atlanta rapper Ken Carson’s breakout album, “A Great Chaos,” delivered a mosh pit energy through its loud, brash sound, and has quickly become one of my favorite rage-trap albums. This project propelled Carson to stardom and left many wondering what innovation Carson would display with his next project.
Fortunately, Carson’s follow-up album, “More Chaos,” released April 11, provides glimpses of the same innovation that made Carson’s previous work stand out. However, the album still falls short of its predecessor, with it being a more tedious and repetitive listen.
Most notably, Carson’s creative approach to beat changes shines in the songs, “Blakk Rokkstar,” “LiveLeak” and “Diamonds.” These songs feature an explosive beat switch, providing a much-needed energy boost to the otherwise stale project.
Another place where Carson shines is in the tracks with less harsh instrumentals such as “Thx,” “Kryptonite” and “Down2Earth,” which have a more laid back tone. Through his usage of deeper lyrics, Carson taps into a more introspective side, which leaves listeners with a more meaningful listening experience.
This is exemplified on “Thx,” where Carson raps about how grateful he is toward his family and his fans for helping him get to the place of stardom where he now lies. This more mellow, reflective style is unusual for him and provides a break in the otherwise overbearing production.
Although Carson showed glimpses of evolution, the biggest crutch of “More Chaos” is its repetitiveness. Most songs on this album feature a similar style of destructive bass with off-beat flows from Carson. Not only is this style extremely similar to “A Great Chaos,” but also executed worse on this album.
The tracks “Xposed” and “Inferno” display this phenomenon clearly. These songs sound very similar to something on “A Great Chaos,” but the atrocious mixing led to a painful listening experience. The bass overpowers all other elements, leading to a cluttered mess of sounds that is very unappealing.
Additionally, songs like “Trap Jump” and “Dismantled” sound as though they were ripped straight out of “A Great Chaos” without any evolution in sound. These songs are not bad, however, Carson made a name for himself off his boundary-pushing production, and I expected more than leftovers from his previous work.
While “More Chaos” has many groundbreaking highlights, it falls flat due to its subpar mixing and unoriginality. With Carson’s next project, I hope he builds on the introspection and dynamic beat switches he introduced with “More Chaos,” rather than releasing another subpar copy of his current albums.
