Review #13: Lärs – F E R A L

ʟärs Margera, the rapper behind this year’s excellent (despite what he might say) project Pronounced With Regret, hasn’t kept his foot off the pedal since then. Melodic tracks like ‘SWEAT!’, eerie numbers like ‘GHOST!’ and quality two trackers with Souless’ finest (Suff, ntvrme, Isaac) have littered his colourful discography in the past few months, a sequence of songs that felt like a natural leadup to this, the Killer Kane executively produced tape F E R A L.

This is the third project this year entirely produced by Kane, as he previously handled production on BITTER END and Budget Cuts 2, while also working heavily on the mixing and mastering on PREFIX and KILL BARRY 2. And yet, with the 11 minute beat odyssey that he unleashes here, he may just have topped them all. Lead single ‘Nites’ warps a vocal sample beyond recognition, bringing in an orchestral buzz as ʟärs overtakes Barry Marrow‘s opening musings with an eloquent yet gritty verse befitting of Kane’s exhaustive work on this song.

Indeed, Barry is almost as common an MC as the titular rapper here, starring on five of eight tracks. He adds a downcast angle to the gloomy ‘twilight’. Here, ʟärs proves his worth as the hookman, hammering bleak sentiments in with increasing. On ‘sidewalker’, ʟärs’ ‘Metropolis walker, n*** guard your daughter peepin’ me, devoid of decency’ is matched by an equally fiery ‘N***** is bitches, and you know I’m Souless. Like the Grim Reaper, some sort of creature smoking reefer violating features’. ʟärs and Barry are often the most delivery-focused rappers in their group, but ehre the two are lyrical monsters.

ʟärs sinks further into the funeral march atmosphere solo, however. ‘chickenscratch’ is the most laser-focused song on the project, bringing out the hulking animalism that its title refers to. ‘the static’, meanwhile, is the best example of ʟärs and Kane fusing flawlessly. The disembodied wail of the latter’s production quivers behind a pyre of Dots-isms: ‘This that raw shit from the moshpit, n**** looking for the off switch, moving cautious. Shawty asking where her draws is, we the opposite. Every bar on this track, and on the tape as a whole, is an enigmatic battle cry delivered in ʟärs’ flawlessly dead-eyed manner.

The project wraps up perfectly with ‘4Granted // Granite’. Easily the most fleshed-out offering here, the song echoes the beauty of previous ʟärs/Barry duet ‘Memorease’, sounding like a crossover between that track and the forestry ‘fortress’. Barry gets in his emotional bag here, but simultaneously offers a straight-laced rap to conclude his five part offering to F E R A L. Overall, this was a great way to wrap up the rapper’s latest tape and to bring a close to an excellent year on the whole.

Listen the project on Soundcloud.