KIDS SEE GHOSTS - KIDS SEE GHOSTS

KIDS SEE GHOSTS
KIDS SEE GHOSTS
2018
Spotify

It's easy to go after major record labels for diminishing artits' potential in trade for the all mighty dollar, but at least when they say an album will come out at midnight on Friday, it does. With G.O.O.D. Music however you can expect it to maybe drop some hours well after that making you wait the fuck around. It's the mystique of Kanye, forcing you to wait for his work creating even more buzz than his Twitter feed likely already had. This new record titled for the Kanye West Kid Cudi collaboration KIDS SEE GHOSTS seems to borrow from Kid's last record more so than it does from Kanye's. That record Passion, Pain and Demon Slayin'  was rough to say the least. Tons of fumbling guitar as Kid Cudi tried to morph into some kind of Kurt Cobain for the next generation. The record takes almost five minutes to get to any Kanye vocals, and damn near anything close to a hip hop track. The first two tracks are damn near disposable but "Cudi Montage" is something else. The track feels wild and caged, hiding something sinister down deep that it isn't quite ready to reveal just yet. "Freeee (Ghost Town Pt. 2)" is the first time you really start to get Cudi's ROck & Roll inklings, and honestly it's the first time they have ever worked. The ghostly vibe really permeates this track giving it this ethereal and flowing sense more so than any Knaye tracks really have before. He has made songs that soar of course, but nothing quite like this.

What Kanye is really showing here is how powerful and freeing a seven track LP can be. He covers all the bases and ticks all the boxes with each one of these albums thus far while playing in different production fields for each. There is a great deal of this album that feels like Cudi and Kanye are trying to convince themselves of something. "Feel the Love" repeats the phrase "keep moving forward" over and over to the point it almost becomes a mantra rather than a hook. With the duo's history of mental health issues it feels like they are trying to affirm themselves, and perhaps it's not something we need to be privy too. "Reborn" opens with a Kurt Cobain guitar sample from Montage of Heck which further pushes the Cudi as Cobain nattative that never seems to work. The song itself however is quite beautiful outside of the sample creating this really vivid soundscape punctured by Knaye's lyrics and boosted by Cudi's soaring voice. It's a fitting end for an album that is varied and new, but one that doesn't totally work as well as Knaye's other two releases. Cudi it seems is still hung up on being a Rock star for some reason, something that has yet to benefit him. KIDS SEE GHOSTS is a really different record, because it feels far more like a peek into these artists heads, complete with swirling dread and positive affirmations. This is an album to be sat with and pondered, at least those tracks that deserve it.

7.8 out of 10