Purge.Zip - Deadcrow
Genre: Liquid trap
In short: "atmospheric trap mixtape"
Genre: Liquid trap
In short: "atmospheric trap mixtape"
Rating: 69
Cohesiveness: 80
Track quality: 76
Tags:
Beginner-friendly? yuhhhh
"Purge.Zip" is a mixtape that marks the end of a very atmosphere-driven era for Deadcrow.
A pioneer of the intense hardwave sound, Deadcrow is an innovator and a hard hitter in underground trap circles, but "Purge.Zip" displays a very different side to his production. It's the flip side to the Deadcrow coin—the heads, face up and open to the world, his hardwave; and the tails, an era past now, his atmospheric 'liquid' trap sound, a sound that "Purge.Zip" exemplifies. Musically watermarked with Deadcrow's signature 'ca-caw' sample, "Purge.Zip" is a simple yet elegant mixtape, fitted with an 11-track tracklist that is largely just a vibe. It features minimalistic trap beatwork—falling into quite a few tropes of the genre, but that doesn't matter, really, because they add their own flair to the overraching atmosphere of the project—with a big blanket of synth leads draped over it quite comprehensively, resulting in a very cold atmosphere that doesn't do much in terms of immersion, but instead weaves its success through a certain minimalistic intruige and downtempo styling. Structurally, "Purge.Zip" is quite repetitive for the majority of the tracklist, but Deadcrow tries something towards the end, and it's certainly interesting. The outro of track 9, "Stars", is distorted and crashing, and after nine straight tracks of largely similar atmospheric synthwork and beatwork, Deadcrow moves into an uncanny, darker final movement, culminating in "The Faceless" that brings on a thick sub-bass to wave farewell to not only the album, but also to this atmospheric phase of Deadcrow's work.
Small production subtleties give "Purge.Zip" plenty of sonic depth, but the aforementioned repetitiveness leaves a lot to be desired. At points, the mixtape loses my attemtion, and though it is a vibe, it's not a very engaging one, likely preferring to be left in the background. But I can't deny the structurally adept finale, nor can I deny the sense of progression Deadcrow has injected. Ultimately, I'm unsure as to what to make of "Purge.Zip", but I think I enjoyed it—landing it in the 70/100 range—despite its tendency to drag out a bit.
| Name | Comments | Superlative |
|---|---|---|
| 15 | Big synth that gets progressively more intense, despite having no beat to back it, though it's a bit repetitive | Standout |
| Behemoth | Scratchy trap beat with lots of cool chippy elements and a strangely plucky string lead sound | Dark |
| Blue Light | Simple lead with the occasional stutter, but it does feel quite repetitive through the full runtime | Laid-back |
| Cosmic Angel | Sharp synth lead in the first movement, before the track pauses and switches up the melody | Standout |
| Desolate | Very atmospheric with an addictive kick loop—enjoy the dynamic beatwork on this one—and spacious mixing | Atmospheric |
| Dive | Pretty strong synth lead that permeates the track, with a nice—albeit bland—trap drum loop | |
| Dreams | Decent liquidy background production behind a thick lead synth, but again, same repetitive criticism | Atmospheric |
| Searching | The addition of muted vocal samples adds a neat twist to this one, slightly darker but still atmospheric | Standout |
| Stars | Background kick that fades in to act as some sort of buildup, with a super hard and super weird switchup at the end | Switchup |
| Station X | Clean transition to a darker tone with some strong builds, low synth runs, and empty dropsections | Dark |
| The Faceless | Giant sub-bass and a simplistic lead melody to tie up this album with an unexpectedly hard-hitting finish | Intense |