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21 Savage Offset Metro Boomin Without Warning album review
Without Warning is obviously rap music as horror film expressionism. Released on Halloween by Atlanta trap rappers 21 Savage and Migos’ Offset with producer Metro Boomin, the mix-tape carries all of it in lyrics, allusions, and sonic cues: eerie cackling, howling winds, jump-scares, skeletons, goblins, bloody Phantoms, Grim Reapers, Jason, and Nightmare on Elm Street. 21 Savage and Metro Boomin know a thing or two about turning murder to blood sport, as they showed on their 2016 mix-tape Savage Mode, which serves as a gory precedent for Without Warning. Now with Offset—one of the most outstanding rappers of 2017—along for the ride, the trio have produced a solid mix-tape where supernatural frights are replaced by guns and goons. The bad guys win. Sound design is key to a release like this, and Metro constantly finds the right balance between ghostly and ghastly, striking a tone dark enough for a shudder yet bracing enough for an adrenaline rush. Songs like “Mad Stalkers” and “Run Up the Racks” having the pulse-raising booms of 808 drums and minor-key notes. The flourishes are calm but impactful: the seamless segue from 21’s “My Choppa Hates Niggas” to Offset’s “Nightmare,” the understated tectonic shift beneath the Offset verse on “Rap Saved Me which is favorite in my opinion.
8/10
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