Oh snap, Loco; you coming like this?

It’s hard to believe, as much as we hear him featured on other artists’ tracks, that this Loco’s first album and second project overall.  Sometime you can get a little worried when an artist tends to stick to features and singles and never puts out a multi-track work.  It could mean that they are incapable of sustaining interest for a listener for longer than a few minutes.  Thankfully for Loco, not only does that not appear to be the case, but he seems to have saved the best of himself for his own project because this is a solid listen.

The production for the album is likely lot different than what you may be expecting.  While all the beats are engaging and have a really good sound to them, they are a less hard hitting than you might expect.  There are some tracks that have and somewhat throwback vibe, some that teeter towards R&B, and others that hover around smooth jazz.  They all have hip-hop elements for sure, but this collection is a lot smoother than we imagined it would be considering most the tracks that he’s featured on recently (although it is fairly cohesive in sound with his first EP, Locomotive).

What keeps this from completely turning off those looking for more hardcore bops is the flow.  Loco varies things up from track to track, but there is an underlying style that is easy to hear as you listen.  He brings a lot of energy to each track, making some of the smoother songs more upbeat and driving than they would be otherwise.  Despite the number of features, the rapper manages to control every track and keep himself the center of attention.  At times, it can be hard to pick out the featured verse because it’s so short (the Hoody feature, for example, only runs about 30 seconds; Cha Cha Malone’s is backing vocals and a 20 second lead), but the difference in style between him and the other rappers becomes clear as you listen.  The time for seems to fly by as you listen and you will find yourself going back to the beginning to really listen and absorb this treat.

Our favorite tracks are What I’m Saying, Too Much, and Still.  The most skippable tracks are Tiger and You Too.