ARTIST: SXBER BLU
SOUNDCLOUD
TWITTER
A weird cyber-indie dirge, ‘Wake My Body Up’ summarises Sxber Blu as an artist pretty well. Tasteful vocal effects are layered on thick, the jangly beat careening gently in the background. Sxber Blu’s primary vocal approach seems to mainly comprise dramatic emo delivery, but the many ways in which this is applied to his songwriting is definitely impressive. ‘Goth Angel’ sounds like an emo rap archetype, pulling massive influence from genre staples with its alt rock melody and moaning harmonies, but the vocal engineering that enables such massive mini-hooks to exist is absolutely to be admired.
The artist’s project Lost In The Snow sounds like Escape The Fate fed through a smoggy trap filter. ‘Oni Angel’ is a killer song and probably the most immediate standout, its robotic lead vocal emerging from the cloudy production like a malfunction in the matrix. The aptly titled ‘Malfunction’ is similar in its songwriting set up, the Bladee-esque hook slicing the song’s frosty atmosphere like an icepick. ItsReaperX’s brief guest appearance adds a bleak dynamic to the song, making for a very satisfying duet.
However, often I feel that it is appropriate that most of Sxber’s music is solo, their voice is enormously multi-faceted and combines some of the best elements of the internet rap age into a gratifying whole. Any song on their Soundcloud is more than worth a listen, these brief highlights are merely the strongest examples of their ambitious take on emotionally disconnected emo-hop.
