Bryson Tiller ‘Solace & the Vices’ Review: An Underdog with Bite

Regardless of being immortalized in baby-making playlists and on city radio by his 2015 hit “Don’t,” Bryson Tiller is one thing of a cult underdog, hardly ever talked about alongside the greatest R&B and pop-rap names of the final decade. The closest he’s come to recapturing that early success was his catty, insouciant 2024 banger “No matter She Desires,” a shock hit that was initially a SoundCloud-only freebie.

Tiller confronts his underdog standing instantly with a putting mixture of insecurity and bombast on “Completed,” the ultimate monitor on the rapper-singer’s fifth studio album, Solace & the Vices. He assesses his profession to date and states what he has in retailer shifting ahead: “I’m goin’ on a complete new run,” he enthuses, earlier than admitting, “I ain’t lookin’ for the primary/Simply cash and the shit maintain comin’,” whereas assuring us he “ain’t fallin’ off, bitch, you humorous.” He additionally derides his hometown of Louisville’s Hometown Heroes murals, which have been made for different ascendant alums like Jennifer Lawrence and Jack Harlow however apparently not for him.

That’s a somewhat curious observe on which to finish half two of the album, The Vices, which has been billed as one thing of a chest-thumping victory lap following the first half’s journey by way of moody, extra emotional R&B terrain. The query the album implicitly poses is whether or not these two sides—genres and emotional states—can actually be separated.

At his simplest, Tiller is ready to lock right into a slipstream the place rapping and singing, verse and hook, merge in a melodic, forceful circulate. This typically comes when he’s actually stepping into on a phrase or phrase, utilizing an exaggerated vocal run or trill to take a position a seemingly innocuous and even petty concept with the utmost urgency. On “No Contest,” exhalations of “hey”—framed as the inciting spark of a relationship—comprise the entirety of the refrain. And on “Lower Ties,” he duets with himself, his lowkey belts weaving out and in of the rapping, every one amplifying the different.

Phrases and concepts tumble collectively with elegant chaos on “Autumn Drive” and “Crocodile Tears,” guided by Tiller’s generally boyish voice, which has a nasally sweetness to it. His higher register will get a pleasant exercise on “Workaholic,” although a few of the different songs in the album’s entrance half are melodically much less memorable. Many barely attain two minutes and really feel underbaked.

R&B and rap, and overt success and potential irrelevance, aren’t the solely polarities Tiller performs with on Solace & the Vices. His work is each exceedingly fashionable and a little bit dated. The ’80s-influenced manufacturing on “I Want Her” feels discordant with the painfully Twenty first-century declaration “[I] want her like the songs on my playlist” (and the album’s cowl artwork could be very VSCO-coded or like one thing from somebody’s Flickr web page circa 2011). However when Tiller places each final ounce of power right into a efficiency, recruits thrilling up-and-coming rappers like Luh Tyler or BabyDrill for a function, or shrewdly selects a beat with a present edge to it like “Lower Ties” or “No Contest,” it’s a reminder that he’s nonetheless very a lot maintaining with his extra celebrated friends.