Brooklyn, New York rapper & producer Rocket Rese making his full-length studio debut. Known for being a Sematary affiliate, his debut extended play Doubted Me earlier this year was welcomed to lukewarm reception although the 2nd EP Let Ya Speakers Bleed only a month later saw people welcoming it a lot more experimenting with hardstyle & gangsta rap. He was even featured on the recent SosMula mixtape Yung Plane Krash earlier this summer, preparing for The Hardstyle Massacre that would come in time for the Halloween season.
After the self-produced “Solo Produced” intro giving us a taste of what’s to come for only 83 seconds, “Carry-A-Drum” unfortunately begins with this mediocre intro combining the hardstyle subgenre of the hard dance side of electronic dance music & gangsta imagery whereas “Blackout” runs it up with Internet Money Records in-house producer Synthetic talking about fucking with savages. “Show Me” featuring 13° moves on from there with the strongest guest appearances wanting to prove if one really has bands.
“6 Hours” doesn’t really impress me all that much from the hardstyle beat to the subject matter regarding him being up at 4am smoking weed while “Freaky Girls” talks about his preference in women. “Hood Ravers” continues from there advising that everyone enjoys it through the storm as much as they can even if the instrumental was ok just before “Black on Black” featuring Sematary ends the 1st half with both of them making it up wearing all black.
Meanwhile on “Devil Dance”, we have Rese kicking off the 2nd leg of The Hardstyle Massacre talking about feeling dead inside at only 7 in the morning preceding “Pop Out” moving forward looking rock out any speakers surrounding him. “Molly Watah” featuring Black Kray finds the pair bringing more gangsta raps to the table while “Body” produced by Shadow Wizard Money Gang was admittedly another favorite, putting a horror twist to hardstyle.
“Nanana” talks about taking bitches to Mardi Gras & to leave anyone fraudulent behind while “Love It” discusses cutting chops by the dozens. “Futures” vocally reminds me of Chief Keef at moments talking about his diamond chain looking like coke & after the uptempo hardcore “4 My Homie” promises he’ll fight anyone who disrespects those he considers friends, The Hardstyle Massacre spends the remaining minutes of the album talking about being caught up “In the Hills”.
Being introduced to him when that SosMula collab dropped several months ago, I still think it’s corny Rocket Rese was caught faking a co-sign from one of my top 10 producers of all-time Ye formerly known as Kanye West last weekend & The Hardstyle Massacre makes for an average debut despite having a better understanding of what makes this guy appealing. The production doesn’t really interest me much outside of a small handful of exceptions including Whethan & Vieze Asbak’s contributions, but I’m curious to know whether or not he’ll make more beats of own going forward like the intro cut.
Score: 3/5
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