iann dior is a 22 year old rapper & singer/songwriter from Corpus Christi, Texas who first emerged in the spring after signing to 10K Projects in 2019 & dropped his debut mixtape Nothing’s Ever Good Enough later that spring. This would wind in a joint deal with Internet Money Records, who helped put out his full-length debut Industry Plant in the fall of that same year & then the debut EP I’m Gone the following summer. Now iann’s music in the past never really wowed me because I felt like 10K Projects was trying to strike gold with him as another Trippie Redd, but I was morbidly curious going into this sophomore album of his given that he had a spot in last year’s XXL Freshman Class.
“is it you?” starts off the whole album with a painfully boring summer ballad bitching & moaning about a girl who had his mind twisted whereas “complicate it” works in a down-tune guitar talking about being sick of being in the same situation as his lover. Lil Uzi Vert tags along for the poppy “V12” produced by Nick Mira & Taz Taylor getting boastful, but then “I might” has a more cloudier tone talking about his late-night habits.
Meanwhile on “heavy”, we have iann on top of a grungy guitar lead admitting that he can’t love leading into “dark angel” revealing how half assed it is both sonically & songwriting wise. “obvious” has some decent radio rock production from none other than Travis Barker even though the subject matter feels like some angsty middle school shit & “heartbreak3r” has to be the most pathetic Juice WRLD knockoff I’ve heard in a minute.
The instrumental that “option” brings to the table is a lot similar to the opener except he’s moping about his girl being the problem with him yet “regret” tries to go back into cloudier territory getting in his breakup bag except it’s just very trite. It’s only right that Machine Gun Kelly comes into the picture for “thought it was” talking about losing their minds except Travis’ dreary guitar licks & hi-hats are a lot more tolerable than either vocal performance whereas “sinking” comes through with a psychedelic albeit decent look at depression.
The song “let you” comes through with a pop rock instrumental talking about not looking back at the past while the penultimate track “fallin’” goes into acoustic turf with a shitty Tom Petty interpolation that have him rolling in his grave. “hopeless romantic” then sends the album off on a pop punk note further shoving his inability to love down our throats.
It’s really ironic that this is called on to better things because I happen to look at it as the worst thing that iann has ever done. Internet Money & Travis Barker’s contributions are a lot more detailed & interesting than the rest of the producers that were involved, but it just feels like his own rendition of Neon Shark vs. Pegasus & he manages to fall flatter on his face than Trippie did.
Score: 1.5/5
Legends Will Never Die 