Lil Peep - Come Over When You're Sober Pt. 2

Lil Peep
Come Over When You're Sober Pt. 2
2018
Spotify

Having to put together the pieces after someone's death is always hard. The emotional stress is a major aspect but the physical act of organizing and clearing out the deceased's things is a whole other. That's where friends and family found themselves in November of 2017 when Lil Peep overdosed after a gig in Tucson. The emo-rap prodigy was uniting fans of both genres at an incredible clip as his haunting songs struck cords with disillusioned youth. Overdose deaths are nothing new to Music, all to often it seems like young promising artists self medicate until their body simply can't take it anymore. With Lil Peep it felt more palpable though because He was so connected to his fans, and to the youth culture that had been springing up. After his death his mother famously took his laptop into the apple store asking them to backup and retrieve what was on the computer saying: "My Son dies, this is him.". As heartbreaking as the statement is, she wasn't wrong. Lil Peep was a relentless home recorder and tons of songs in various states of completeness sat on that very computer. With the help of Lil Peep's management team and some of his close collaborators a follow up to his first album was released: Come Over When You're Sober Pt. 2. The album is classic Lil Peep, that intoxicating blend of emo and rap that feels like it should go incredibly wrong, but with Lil Peep it seems to go right. The emo shift in hip hop has been a shaky one to say the least with far more flubs than hits, but it always seemed like Lil Peep had a better sense of where the genre was heading than anyone else.

This album is challenging to listen to because you can hear the promise all over it. There are these moments where everything seems to come together are the music just soars, despite how profoundly sad it usually is. There are also moments though that make it seem like Lil Peep's fate was a forgone conclusion. "Cry Alone" is so angsty, so childish in a lot of ways and it makes you realize the demons that had to swirling around in Lil Peep's head to record this stuff. It's somewhat cathartic to look back and picture Lil Peep as this young martyr for a new cultural movement, but his views on women, drugs and fame are complicated at best. The celebration of pills feels so much more dangerous in hindsight, and more dangerous in general with all that we know. Weed, Coke and Booze all feel a bit trite when Lil Peep describes his drug use on almost every single song. The album's highest moments are all almost exactly the same, Lil Peep distantly and almost aluffly singing these songs about being lonely. The moments soar, but they also are one note: guitar with reverb, vocal with reverb, lyrics about sadness. "16 Lines" about, well, doing 16 Lines of blow to cope with pain, is wonderfully deep, but makes you want to take the young man and shake some mother fucking sense into him. Yet we'll never get that chance, and all we are left with is the ghosts of what could have been. I don't think Lil Peep would have been the biggest name in popular music, but He certainly had something worthwhile to say, and not enough years to say it.

8.1 out of 10