"Present: The Album" - Crescented

Present: The Album is the first LP by the brand new artist "Crescented", The rap counterpart to "The Orb Of Light".

This album is a short listen with it only being 18 minutes long which is actually really great because my biggest gripe with the album "Takeoff", created by the same artist under the artist name "The orb of light" was how much it dragged on and lacked a fluid and smooth structure. It felt like it overstayed it's welcome on a lot of the songs and thankfull this album does not drag on. It doesn't drag on, it keeps moving and transforming at a decent pace which makes this an immediate improvement from they're last album.

But as much of an improvement it is, there's still a lot of room to grow.

The album begins with the title track Present which featues a melodic guitar centric beat with reverberated vocal samples. The beat is great to be honest, I like the vibe of it, it feels melancholic with it's minor key guitar and it's overall well mixed. The only gripe I have with this track is crescented's rapping. Lyrically it's tight and well written but the performance is where it faulters and doesn't do the lyrics and beats justice. The words get slurred and there's background vocals near the middle that that are rapping at the same time as the lead vocals and they don't sync perfectly which results in a disjointed sound as these vocals collide into a jumble of colliding performances which makes it harder to understand what's being said and it enhances the slurring because they kind of stack ontop of each other, and on top of this the flow kind of staggers at parts and doesn't feel perfected fully. honestly all this track needed was some more takes and time and it would be perfect.

Overall though this is still one of my favorite songs off of this album just because of how great the beat is and crescented's performance is great for the most part.

MONEY is a dark piano rap track with a trap beat with a roaring bass in the mix. My feelings on this track are purely personal because I'm just not much for this general sound which is why I generally don't like it but aside from that there is also the problem with crescented's flow being kind of loose and not staying consistent. It just goes a bit off beat every now and then which means it's impossible to rap along to for example because it's so all over the place.

WHO AM I is a dark beat again but this time with flutes and bells and an 808 bass as the main instruments. I like the sound of the beat but the 808 just overpowers everything else and results in crescented being buried in the mix. This track was actually much better live because the crowd sang "That's who I am" and you could hear cresented's vocals much clearer. It's actually a interesting thing about this album, i found it to be better live.

Dead To Me is probably the worst song on the album because the mix and the performance is very noticably flawed. The mic quality sounds worse than any other song for some reason, the performance is awkward and underwhelming and the chorus doesn't have the presence it needs for it to work. It's just not a well performed chorus, it needed more confidence. The verses also feel a bit off, like there needed to be more confidence in the performance. The live version had that but the album version doesn't. It's not like it was destined to be bad, it just lacks the proper execution that would have made this track really work and hit.

But now we get to my favorite track on the album, and also the last track on the album which is Loyalty. Now, obviously I'm biased because I am the feature on this track but even aside from that, the beat features this beautiful piano sample and great beat and the synth bridge is atmospheric and pretty. I also really love my contributions to the track, like the ending part that was produced by me with my falsetto background vocals and the melancholic production. My only gripes are, crescented's rap performance could have been a bit tighter at times and the my final vocal performance has this tone to it that doesn't sit well with me.

Overall it's the freshman album. A start and I'm looking forward to seeing what crescented could create without the time limit like this album had. Because with more time I think crescented could make a really enjoyable and fun rap album and this is just a taste of what's to come.

5.5/10

Favorites: Present Loyalty

Least favorites: MONEY WHO I AM Dead To Me

(This review was written on December 14th, 2023)