Rap perspective: The metaphor of the two birds “Mockingbird” and “Crow,” works perfectly to describe the two halves of this double LP. The first eight tracks imitate the usual sounds of modern country, whereas the capitalized half, tracks 9-17, prove Hardy wants to make a statement in the Country-Rock scene.

HARDY’s sophomore album was everything fans were anticipating: and more. The bilateral album showcases his exceptional writing ability in “the mockingbird,” the first eight songs, and his capability of pouring adrenaline into listeners with “THE CROW, the last nine. The 32-year-old Mississippian’s fanbase is flourishing, and we get the feeling that the 2022 ACM Songwriter of the Year will be around for decades.

Highlights of the album

1.  screen

The anthem’s powerful message heavily applies to America’s new generation. Centered around a homonym, it states that the “good-for-nothing cellphone screen” has prevented us from living in the present as time flies by. Technology has caused us to live less enriching lives, as we are never at enough leisure to simply admire the world “through a back porch screen.” The song plays high-pitched, pedal steel guitar notes, imitating the sound emitted from an old television set.

2. red (feat. Morgan Wallen)

HARDY and Wallen have produced many songs together, and none thus far have been letdowns. “red” was not out of the ordinary. The track highlights that we are united in more ways than divided. Not everyone may belong to the red political party, but we all bleed red under the “blue, white, and red” flag. Even though all the duo used was an electric guitar and a set of drums as background music, they strived for quality over quantity on instruments, delivering a melody that paired beautifully with the moderate tempo.

3. .30-06

HARDY demonstrates his talent for blending genres in his two-minute ballad, “.30-06”. In this tale, Michael Hardy’s significant other steals his hunting rifle out of his truck in retaliation because he isn’t spending enough time with her. He envisions her laughing while selling the gun, wrongly believing her act dismantles his season. To Hardy, the damage is minimal: she doesn’t understand that “one less .30-06 to a redneck” means nothing, as he has multiple more throughout the house and will go hunting again tomorrow. With scattered guitar riffs and distorted microphones, it’s easy to mistake this for a Bush rock n’ roll song from the late 90s.

Artist Performance: 8.6/10

HARDY poured his heart and soul into this album, and the degree of creativity was impeccable. With that being said, references to hunting became repetitive; the topic made its way into more than half of the record’s numbers. 

Production: 9.4/10

This record was an instrumental masterpiece. The album conveyed a full palate of emotions, and the contributions from the percussion and chordophone branches were unparalleled. 

Replay Value: 7.3/10

The nature of this album is incomparable, which causes its replay value to take a hit. There isn’t a wide variety of settings that invite the emotional tone of this release. 

Overall: 8.4/10

Country perspective: You couldn’t pay me to play this album again. I shamefully lost over an hour of my life listening to it, and Trippie Redd lost a profusion of them.

The best way to describe Trippie’s most recent project is overwhelmingly underwhelming. Despite its title, I found it hard to imagine myself listening to it inside a mansion and, quite honestly, anywhere else in this ever-expanding universe.

Between the struggle to get through the 25-song (76-minute) tracklist in one sitting to the literal flushing-toilet-bowl sound effects, this album is, for lack of a better term, shit. For anyone interested in Trippie’s catalog, I’d urge you to stay far away from this project and rather listen to some of his earlier albums, such as “A Love Letter to You3” or his more recent “Neon Shark vs. Pegasus.”

This felt like horrible fan fiction of how Trippie Redd would’ve made Playboi Carti’s “Whole Lotta Red” as Trippie took a DJ Khalid role by saying two words and letting a random feature picked from a hat labeled “Wikipedia search results for 2010’s rappers” finish the rest of the track.

Highlights of the album 

1. GOODFELLAS

This is the only song that sounds like the vocals weren’t mixed by a two-year-old. It has some cool bars sprinkled throughout, but aggressive and unbalanced baselines often overshadow them. Nardo Wick’s verse was very lackluster. His feature only provided some good ad-libs to Trippie’s mid-verses.

2. PURE

The energy Trippie and G-Herbo brought to this track were much more balanced than the rest of the album. The whistles occasionally replacing the hi-hats work well to add more personality to the bland, repetitive production. 

3. DARK BROTHERHOOD

Lil Baby has been known to turn anything he touches to gold, so having him on this track was a bit of a cheap shot on Trippie’s part. Nonetheless, Lil Baby’s verse was decent, adding just enough to make up for Trippie’s mediocre performance. 

Artist Performance: 2.5/10

Trippie sounded like a bad feature on every single one of the songs on this album. He brought occasional bars with a whole lot of filler to send to an artist whose name he wanted on the song.

Production: 4.3/10

I only wish these beats were spared from Trippie’s attempts at different sounds because some of this product has potential. Then again, if I heard each instrument side-by-side, I would not be able to distinguish the end of one and the beginning of the next.

Replay Value: 1.7/10

None of these songs made any of my playlists, and there are a couple of songs that I would listen to again. It didn’t feel enough like a cohesive album, but rather a playlist of tracks that sound the same.

Overall: 2.8/10