Injury Reserve: Injury Reserve
Injury Reserve’s new self-titled album is a breath of fresh air in a genre over-saturated with trap pop. The vast array of sounds percolating throughout the project points to the amount of work Parker Corey poured into this project with rappers Ritchie With a T and Stepa J. Groggs. The Arizonan group dropped something both commercially viable and experimental, a far cry from their 2015 jazz-influenced debut.
The Arizona Trio
In listening to the album, I found that the group’s resident producer shouldered most of the heavy lifting. The 21 year old’s beats range from Flume-esque sensory-overloading bangers to masterful old school hip-hop instrumentals that could impress both Kanye and 9th wonder alike. At the time of Injury Reserve’s initial debut, Corey’s production was already avant-garde. Honing his craft has allowed him to reach an unprecedented level of originality for the trio’s most recent release. From the hard hitting samples of car noises on “Jailbreak the Tesla” to the incorporation of a salsa piano melody on “Gravy n’ Biscuits”, it seems that there is no end to Corey’s versatility. I wish I could say the same about the group’s vocalists.
Injury Reserve’s Eponymous album
With the exception of the album’s more emotionally raw songs, “Best Spot in the House”, “What a Year It’s Been”, and “New Hawaii”, the MCs stuck to their schtick: normal rap topics (weed, addiction, sadness, and a yearning for material success) discussed from the perspective of the average Joe. This would be fine if they didn’t call out other rappers for sticking to these topics in the track “GTFU”. Despite their self-proclaimed humility, the vocalists also rap about money they’ve accumulated in more than half of the songs on the album. They go as far as stating “I ain’t gotta say we high” in “GTFU” right before rapping the line “four grams or more just to make it through the day” in “Gravy n’ Biscuits”. In short, Groggs and Ritchie seem to be caught between hating on obvious rap and perpetuating genre stereotypes. The mixed messages sent by the group’s lyricists makes it harder for me to feel an emotional connection to them. That said, the ebb and flow between their catchy verses and Corey’s insane production abilities will keep this album in my heavy rotation for the foreseeable future. The indisputable banger “Three Man Weave” will get the most spins. Injury Reserve may not have tapped into the mainstream rap market yet, but I’d bet they’ll be on top soon.