Los Angeles, California emcee Shakewell has returned for his 4th extended play. Coming up almost a decade ago off his debut EP Keystone Prince, he followed it up a year later with his 2nd EP Big Juice tha Sip resulting in the $uicideboy$ signing him to G*59 Record$ right when the pandemic started & releasing the full-length studio debut Pray 4 Shakewell. It’s already been a couple years since Dangerously Close & the Slugeater’s continuing to tease a sophomore effort.
“Smoke (I Want It All)” after “Tha Prologue” intro experiments with metal music to open up the EP talking about looking for trouble whereas “It Happened Again” featuring the Regional Justice Center heavily confronts someone who betrayed all of his dogs. “Year of tha Worm” featuring Raygunn Ethan has a cloudier Memphis sound to it talking about being the chosen one & after “Shameless Money Drain” featuring Drain brings the guitars back in so he can rip shit up, Slugeaterfinishes up with a 3 minute punk rock outro where he’s “Talkin’ My Shit” with Alpha & Omega.
It might come as a surprise to people that Shakewell was in a metalcore band called Betrayal before switched his style in for the Memphis-inspired trap sound G*59 has collectively become synonymous with, but that doesn’t necessarily excuse Slugeater for being as such of a mixed bag it is. Don’t get me wrong: I appreciate him taking it back to where it all began drawing inspiration from punk to metal & beatdown hardcore. Even if the features leave little to be desired.
Score: 2.5/5
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