Courtesy of Top Dawg Entertainment
Courtesy of Top Dawg Entertainment

Chicago hip-hop artist and independent music producer Lance Skiiiwalker, recently debuted his first full-length album, “Introverted Intuition,” through Los Angeles-based hip-hop label Top Dawg Entertainment, the same record label which boasts Kendrick Lamar along with many others. This explosive 35-minute album is too experimental for its own good and leaned toward more lengthy intermissions than songs to jam out to.

“Introverted Intuition” has a noticeable focus on expressing an extremely raw emotion on each track. Skiiiwalker’s method of echoing screams and talking voices as well as warped high-pitch and low-pitch laughter, made it impossible to predict what would happen next and this experimentation worked against the album’s cohesiveness. On the tracks “Sound,” “Stockholm” and “Could It Be,” Skiiiwalker starts off with a slow crawl beat and speaks with deep or warped vocal effects. These vocal effects add a satirical tone to the album, such as in “Could it Be” where the narrator is overly concerned about a callback from his muse. About halfway through the song, the whole mood changes and it sounds like a completely different and excellent tune.

On four separate tracks Skiiiwalker pretends to be a radio DJ, and he gets to play around with vocal effects and occasionally takes radio callers who comment on the album’s progression. This totally halts the mood of the album each time, and I really wanted those portions to end as soon as they began. Once the beat drops, Skiiiwalker tends to prefer a more complex and intricate drum beat where he has freedom with his unregimented lyrical style. This allows Skiiiwalker to create some pretty unique sounding tracks such as, “Lover’s Lane” and “Speed.”

This album offers plenty of uniqueness and originality, with a few tracks showing future potential from Skiiiwalker. Unfortunately, the album falls flat when it comes to actual musical substance, and I would’ve preferred to hear more.

Rating: 6/10