New full-length studio debut from San Jose, California deejay, producer, rapper & actor Terror Reid. Originally turning heads a decade back after dubstep pioneer Skrillex signed him to his OWSLA Music for short period of time, he went on to drop 2 full-lengths & 13 EPs in the EDM genre under the name Getter before embarking into hip hop during the pandemic with Hot Vodka, which my homie Rone Bone of The Beneath the Dirt Podcast put me onto when it came out & was impressed by the boom bap/g-funk production as well as the raps from Terror himself. He would follow this up with the sophomore EP DYNAMO along with Hot Vodka 2, coming off his Manifesto to drop Drowned God roughly 5 months after the untimely death of his childhood friend Oliver Tree this summer.
After the intro, the self-produced “Blood Bag” kicks things off spitting the wicked shit over a boom bap beat whereas “Sabertooth” goes for a g-funk vibe instrumentally so he can break it down for all the haters in the back. “Wat I’m Known Fo” talks about telling it the way it is retaining the g-funk sound in the process while “Power Trip” featuring GODHANDUSA finds the pair continuously moving & having the grim reaper as their sidekick.
“Bring tha Pain” moves on from there ruggedly talking about providing exactly that at all times & reminding everyone exactly who they’re fucking with just before “Murderous” featuring Sxmpra dustily returns to the horror themes explored earlier. “Bat Shit” featuring eliozie gets the 2nd half of Drowned God going letting us know exactly how crazy they can get while “Hold Frame” soulfully talks about becoming underrated for his lack of motivation.
Lil Darkie appears during “Rule tha World” decently trading the mic back-&-forth with each other while “Snake Mountain” spends a couple minutes callin’ muhfuckas out. “Glow” featuring Token links up to talk about keeping the bread close to them while “Presto!” featuring Joey Valence & Brae explains no one can walk in their shoes because they’d trip. The g-funk flavored “In My Head” asks why this dark cloud follows him & “Scheme Demon” saves some of the hungriest writing for last.
We don’t usually get this many guests whenever Terror Reid puts anything out & as much as that had me intrigued, his debut album still doesn’t hold up as much as earlier EPs & I don’t see myself revisiting Drowned God other than maybe a little over half of it. His boom bap/g-funk production doesn’t lose it’s spark even if he’s getting more outside producers behind the boards, but there are only a couple guests who really wowed me.
Score: 3/5
Keep up with @legendswill_never_die on Instagram & @LegendsllLiveOn on Twitter for the best music reviews weekly!
