BLOODCAT ‘CATCALL$ 2’ - Review
From hard-hitting, sensuous hip-hop stretching towards genre-bending catharsis and emotive landscapes, CATCALL$ 2 is a record that’ll wrap you tightly around its fingers. BLOODCAT’s taste of melody is impeccable, making every single song as addictive as one another. Their brutally honest lyrics contain just the right amount of rhyme work that makes certain sounds ring without it giving you a headache.
The backdrops are clever. They hardly draw too much attention, but it always provides the perfect disobedient atmosphere that makes this record even more haunting and characteristic. It’s hard to ignore the content. BLOODCAT seems to understand the exact line that’s going to hit you in the heart. He cleverly puts those short, abstract, and deeply engaging lines on highlight and space it out throughout the track.
The 22-year-old Saint Louis-based artist/producer has the ability to hit you at the place where you least expected. Maybe because of BLOODCAT’s openness and honesty in tackling topics like queerness, sexuality, gender issue, money, and relationship and his ability to articulate those experiences in a way that’s hauntingly relatable, their music seems to be able to evoke some deep thinking while bopping your head along the beat, escaping the reality through their melodies.
As explicit and personal as the record can be, CATCALL$ 2 isn’t lack symbolism and contrast, taking listers through an expansive sonic roller coaster. BLOODCAT explores the image and symbolism of the cat through the first two tracks, “what the cat say?” and “Snapchat+.” The album's opening line seems to reveal to listeners what it’s about: “If you can't love a hoe for being a hoe, You need to open your heart. Mid record, “intermis$ion” tackles fire and flame, while “gtg” concludes the album with a chaotic, explosive vocal-infused soundscape, playing with the sound of coldness.
