First: the vocals. Lucy’s always been a hard vocalist to classify, intensely emotive but largely separate from the monster-growl arms race. They can rap double-time pyrotechnics, stack gorgeous falsetto harmonies, or get gummy rhythmic cadences out of their presets, and they often vary their mixing to obscure the connection with a central performer that you’d expect from even the haziest or most abstract rap music. The way Lucy inhabits the beat on the UNMUSIQUE-reminiscent “SAFESPACE”—as just one cut-up electronic layer seething out of the machine—makes them come off more like a hologram or a vocaloid. On “ALL SPEAKERS GO TO HEAVEN,” they attempt metalcore screaming, probably inspired by their longtime idols, the Japanese visual kei band Dir En Grey. It doesn’t quite land, but it’s a useful point of reference for the way their voice can shift between forward-facing songwriting and a more textural serrated edge. There are songs where Lucy plays the traditional role of a rapper forcing chanted momentum out in front of the beat, like “C SECTION” or “SPEED DEMON,” which incites you to break traffic laws if you play it in the car. c still boasts, next to Lucy’s late influence Luci4, some of the weirder vocal production ever distributed through a major label.
The production on c is eclectic and overwhelming, as Lucy and producers like ginseng, kuru, and ivvys survey some of the biggest underground styles of the moment and mix them in the red until they gleam. c is sequenced to constantly swerve between staggering moments; every song has some impressive drop, or ASMR sound-design trick, that shocks the senses. Lucy’s constant sense of invention sometimes falters under the album’s new, megawatt spotlight, lacking the enticing mystery that gives their best music its power. “OROCHIMARU,” for example, is energized enough—Lucy’s inflections are cool, and there’s some DMV-style drum clatter—but also predictable, in a way that brings out weaknesses in the writing and makes the crowded mixdown feel aimless. Some of the best tracks are self-produced ones like “ERASE YOUR SOCIAL,” which bear the jagged bounce (much of this album would benefit from a more foregrounded sense of groove), and knack for creating picturesque atmospheres out of the castaway textures of pandemic SoundCloud, that Lucy developed on SISTERHOOD. Lucy applies the perfect level of distortion to each element of “THE 9TH CIRCLE,” as their sprightly melodies produce clouds of frosty breath that linger in their wake. Like every Lucy project, there are also swing-for-the-fences samples, of the kinds of old, viral songs that create communities of nostalgic yearners in their YouTube comments. “STONE IN FOCUS” makes an extraverted banger out of a meditative SAW II album cut, officially cleared by Richard D. James himself.
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
