Kayze – Decadence
Decadence (n.) – moral or cultural decline as characterized by excessive indulgence in pleasure or luxury.
Arizona-based Kayze is back with his fourth official release, the seven-song offering Decadence. As the spiritual successor to his previous releases Mutually Assured Destruction and Katharsis, Decadence is a cool blend of trap and hip-hop that takes aim at instant gratification, AI, digital culture, and our increasingly online-lived lives.
“No Tomorrow” opens the album as a perfect demonstration of Kayze’s instrumental and vocal stylings. Tight electronic drums are bolstered by twinkling guitars, whistling synths, and a late-night drive vibe that begs for midnight cruising below neon lights. Kayze’s delivery is closer to a monotone drawl than a full-fledged rapper – think the disassociating drawl from Wicca Phase Springs Eternal/ex-Tigers Jaw frontman Adam McIlwee. Lightly autotuned, Kayze drops surprisingly catchy melodies with inspired rhyme schemes that touch on deeper societal issues. Track two, “For a Night,” has a tasty feature from Mu’Dogo that suits the song’s dreamy mood perfectly, dropping references to Henny and one night stands with cold-hearted partners. Decadence starts to feel like the perfect title here – whether you take the song at face value or look at it like a sociological critique is up to you.
“Degenerates” is our vote for album favorite – the guest verse from Yonny pops with aggressive energy, delivered with aplomb and clever wordplay. We particularly loved the following line for obvious reasons:
“I got bread but the IRS never got taxes
But I keep it real, I never chill
Till I’m on the Bills like Josh Allen”
As a Buffalo-based blog, it’s tough to ignore a straight up Buffalo Bills reference. That aside, after the explosive feel change from Yonny, Kayze’s glassy-eyed delivery feels like a return to home, especially when he his the slow burn (but ruthlessly catchy) refrain of “yeah you know it, yeah you know it.”
The rest of the songs on Decadence have a similar energy and round out the project with the perfect amount of Kayze-based personality. The choppy guitar-forward instrumental on “Dangerous” feels refreshingly organic atop stuttering trap beats. The upbeat percussion on title-track “Decadence” is an interesting up-tempo approach with a plunking, bass-driven chorus that feels more like synthpop than hip-hop. Lastly, album closer “Singularity” hits with a perfectly poetic simmer that earns itself a runner-up nod for album fav – see below:
“It was a tragedy we lost too much
No strategy, all the pain is real
But you can’t see because you’re stuck in a bubble that you can’t leave
Now you’re thinking about what you can’t believe”
Check out “No Tomorrow” via the YouTube embed below. You can also find Decadence on your favorite streaming platform, including Spotify and Apple Music. For a more exhaustive list, check out this helpful Linktree link too.
Categorised in: Album Reviews
This post was written by Nick Sessanna