The abrasive but exciting Northampton rapper Tyrone Frampton’s third LP is a powerful, heady concoction, containing this time less grime and politics, more punk and post-punk, rock guitars, and focusing on personal issues, with a paradoxical facial tattooed title acronym meaning U Gotta Love Yourself. A work more of inward self-therapy perhaps, but not of the soothing, gentle type. The first three tracks, Yum, Selfish, and Sooner are a stormy, angry and at times articulate self-doubt, screams, geeing-up, and difficult references to drink and drugs. This is a far more musically adventurous than his previous two LPs, and that influence comes perhaps in collaboration with innovative British producer Dan Carey (also Kwes Darko, Zach Nahome and Sega Bodega and with that connection, some involvement by friends Fontaines DC, and two of the standouts are Feel Good, featuring the excellent ShyGirl on backing vocals, as well as Happy. The title track is another, a slow-burn builder number turning more to wider cultural problems (“We're just puppets in a simulation”). Never Again takes a pause from the the high-octane energy of the first five tracks with a gentler sound and delivery but makes for a difficult, painful story about a pregnant girl (“I walked away”) while the screaming Tourniquet is even more self-torturous. At last there’s some calm, though, closing track 25% Club is almost a tender spoken love song with acoustic guitar (“We go Epping Forest, the cold on your nose / When I look in your eyes, I feel at home”). Potent. Out on Method Records.
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