The hip-hop turn country superstar Jelly Roll has been EVERYWHERE the last couple of years since the album cycle for Whitsitt Chapel started, and it’s easy to understand why. It’s an amazing album and his vocals and songwriting talents are both phenomenal. So, when he announced his new album, the hype was already massive. So far the singles have lived up to that, but how will the rest of the album compare? Read on to find out!
‘Winning Streak’ opens things up pretty fantastically; a slow, soulful, emotional gut-punch of a track. It sets up the album perfectly, showing off Jelly’s amazing blend of country and hip-hop, and has him opening up in a massive way right from the get-go. Addressing alcoholism this head-on is admirable, especially when he’s calling himself Jason throughout. If I’m nearly crying from the opening track, I have no help of having dry eyes by the end, do I? Musically it’s also fantastic, the chorus being massive and catchy, the gospel-style backing vocals adding so much to it. It’s a fantastic opening song, and completely different to ‘Halfway to Hell’ from his last album.
‘Burning’’s slightly more up-beat, though certainly doesn’t lack any emotion compared to the opener. It’s a fun little acoustic guitar riff running through it that kinda reminds me of RHCP’s ‘Road Trippin’’. And his phenomenal power and vocal range gets to come into play for the hugely impactful chorus. It’s also added to even more by the subtle female backing vocal behind him, making it all sound huge. It’s a simple yet another amazing track that fits the tone of the album perfectly!
‘Heart of Stone’ is another fantastic track, and reminds me a lot of the follow-up track and one that were very familiar with here, ‘I Am Not Okay’. His vocals are hauntingly beautiful on both tracks, giving me goosebumps almost constantly. Both also almost had me in tears, the latter even after hearing it so many times in the last couple of months already. And while the former has a bit more going on instrumentally, both have absolutely huge choruses. Both tracks easily make it onto our playlist, and I’d recommend them to anyone at all reading this!
The next two tracks feature incredible guests, llsey on the stripped-back ‘When the Drugs Don’t Work’ and Wiz Khalifa on ‘Higher than Heaven’. Both are two more excellent tracks with both guest vocalists adding a lot to each. I have to admit I prefer the latter; it has a bit more to it instrumentally and Wiz’s rapping is pretty fun, contrasting with Mr Roll’s soulful vocals perfectly. They both slot pretty perfectly together, and yet again fit the vibe of the album pretty perfectly.
Next up is single ‘Liar’. I’m pretty familiar with this already too, and love it just as much now as I did with my first listen. His haunting vocals over the simple acoustic guitar chords to open it is incredible, and it builds up slowly and perfectly into an utterly HUGE chorus. I’ve also just got to accept the fact that it’ll be stuck in my head for the rest of the day… yet again. It’s another utterly incredible track that’s on our playlist, perfectly blending country and hip-hop elements and is a sure fire radio mega-hit!
Tracks like ‘Everybody Bleeds’, ‘What it Takes’ and ‘Hey Mama’ are more simpler, hip-hop leaning songs. They’re still very heavily based around the acoustic guitar, keeping that country element to it, but yeah, are pretty slower and steadier tracks. Almost ballads, if the rest of the album wasn’t at a level much higher. All are good tracks, Jelly being the highlight of all of them with his powerful voice and lyrics.
‘Get By’ picks up the pace again a little, more of a foot-stomping rockier number. I love the gospel beat and feel behind the guitar and vocals, the stomp-clap being a lot of fun. And yet still, it builds to another massive feeling, yet still kinda subdued, chorus. It’s an infectiously fun track that’s impossible not to dance to. It’s also another huge highlight of the album and another that sneaks its way onto our playlist.
‘Unpretty’ is a true ballad, Jelly singing over a few single organ chords, more instrumentation slowly building in throughout. Jelly’s vocals are hauntingly beautiful over the top of it, and the gospel choir behind him gave me goosebumps. And yes, I may have cried a little again if you must know, okay? This is incredible, and easily up there with ‘I Am Not Okay’ in terms of Jelly’s emotion-filled ballads. I’d LOVE to hear this live, especially with the backing vocals too, so he’d better hurry up and be able to come to the UK soon! Follow-up ‘Grace’ gives it a run for its money too, another beautiful ballad track. It’s a little similar to a few of the other tracks though, which is why it didn’t stand out as much to me.
The final track I had in advance was ‘Time of Day’ with the polarising mgk. I have to admit I’m not a fan of the guy, and this didn’t do anything to change my mind. His vocals are consistently bad, and when put against one of the best vocalists around currently in Mr Roll, it makes it even worse for the former rapper/former pop-punker. I’m really hoping these couple of songs with Jelly are it for mgk in country, please can he not kill a second genre in a row? Yeah, this wasn’t great. And I’m glad the streaming editions of the album have an extra few tracks after this, to cleanse the pallet so this wasn’t the lasting memory of the release.
Speaking of the other tracks, I’m not 100% if these are bonus tracks and that this is some extended edition, or if I missed them when I got the album sent over. Either way, they do feel a little… extra? None of them are bad by any stretch, but after 14 tracks already, I kinda felt like the album was long enough, and not many of these add anything new to the release, or blew me away. The only ones that stood out were ‘Hear me Out’ for its incredible lyrics, and the blues-tinged ‘Woman’. The other five tracks, while good, are all kinda similar and sadly just feel a touch fillery to me, on an album that certainly doesn’t need it. Still, if you’re a fan of Jelly’s style, you’ll enjoy them!
Overall: I really enjoyed this! There is so much amazing music on this release, a lot of which I’ll be listening to so much going forward. It’s so hard to compare to his last release as it’s so different. The last one had a lot more of a rock edge that I do think this one took a hit for lacking. I do also feel like the last album had better guests on it who contributed more to the tracks they were on. However, this is still a fantastic album, leaning more into gospel and hip-hop than maybe even the country elements of his sound. I feel like it’s more of a grower for me, but on first listen it’s still super enjoyable. It’s easy to see why he’s one of the biggest names in the scene, currently.
The Score: 8.5/10
