Album Review: Deacon D.A.S. – “Triumphant”
Deacon D.A.S. – “Triumphant”
Released: 2011
Reviewed by: Neil Christian
Rating: 3.0 (Out of 10)
[xrr rating=3.0/10]
Every year there are plenty of albums that don’t match the hype that is generated. Plenty of albums drop with big names backing the project yet are complete doozers. In recent years, from the atrocious follow-up album Carter IV to the biggest sellout album in recent memory to 9th wonder’s wonder years; these albums and many more had massive labels backing them, huge producers dropping cuts on them and more endorsements dropped on these albums then Jonathan Lucroy.
With Triumphant, there are some of the biggest producers in the game backing this project such as Tony Stone, K-Drama & D-Flow, I expected the album to be impressive. I wasn’t impressed to say the least.
Let’s start with the production. The songs are typical mainstream sounding songs designed to get people to dance. It’s a very commercial and repetitious sound that got boring fairly quickly. For example take a listen to What It is, produced by T. Stone, which is an exact copy of the commercial sound dominating the radio landscape, complete with thumping 4/4 kick line, synths and the token sung chorus to appeal to the radio.
He has an interesting sounding voice that takes a bit of getting used to which can be a turn-off for some. Did I also mention that he just took the vocals of a previous remix and just added a new beat to it on A Star is Born? I do not like remixes on albums.
Also I’m not sure what went wrong in the mixing studio, but the tracks all sound flat. The kicks fail to deliver the appropriate punch, the snares are not sharp and the vocals are too loud sometimes and too soft at other times.
Lyrically the rapper is not the 2nd coming of Nas. But hey, not every rapper has to be. Deacon is a very standard rapper as seen on the average cut, Journey of Man where you get a song that gives the background of the formation of man to the result of sin and finally, the solution; Christ with basic rhymes such as,“From the rise of civilizations, hear the cries of different nations, the lives of the innocent taken, I realize that this is in the sinful nature, be our demise and in the end it will break us, let’s face it, got us tied like tennis shoe laces, chopped in a matrix, the penalty awaits us.”
Overall, I was not impressed with the album. Same boring sound that is dominating much of mainstream hip-hop, bad mixing and unoriginal rhymes made this album a complete doozer. With big producers backing the project, I was expecting something phenomenal; alas it was not to be.
Comprehensive Ratings:
1. Music – 4
2. Flow – 4
3. Creativity / Originality – 3
4. Relevancy – 3
5. Content & Character – 3
6. Credibility & Confidence – 3
7. Personality – 2
8. Presentation Quality –3
9. Overall Production Quality – 3
10. Potential Impact – 2
