“Oh shit!!!”
The abrasive American rap trio from Arizona finally arrived into Brighton's Patterns on the last stop of their sold-out UK tour. With their debut LP recently released into the ether, Corey Parker’s glitchy production and the effervescent rapping styles, courtesy of Stepa J. Groggs and Richie with a T, not only enticed my attention but also many of their contemporaries - with such recent collaborations formed with Aminé, Jpegmafia, and Vic Mensa. With a handful of mixtapes, and EPs in their arsenal, the experienced rap trio ultimately sought to capitalise on their UK finale with some frivolous expletives within this intense crucible.
Commencing the proceedings of this underground indie club with a string of their latest singles, after an apt improvised introduction of ‘Rap Song Tutorial’, we imminently saw the fray of frenetic bassy hooks seething as the very pulse of such tracks as ‘Koruna & Lime’ and ‘GTFU’. Combining Groggs and T’s biting rapping styles against their consistent calls to “get the fuck up”, inevitable chaotic scenes ensued within the crowd sparking a deluge of energy against the strobe lighting’s disorienting effects.
Yet it was Injury Reserve’s mid-section of tonight’s set which began to reveal the trite and predictable aspects to their repertoire, especially dipping into their past. Excavating their breakout mixtape of 2016, Floss, with such tracks as ‘Eeny Meeny Miny Moe’, ‘All This Money’, and ‘Oh Shit!!!’, the inevitable musical breakdowns intrinsic to these tracks proved blandly inevitable and perhaps less potent than their more refined recent repertoire. When compared to the impressively curated careers of Jpegmafia, Brockhampton, and Denzel Curry, these aforementioned tracks ultimately paled with Reserve’s rapping styles - not providing a unique enough style or flow amidst their litterings of breakdowns and hook-filled choruses.
Whilst the crowd’s enthusiasm remained in tact during these segments, their unwavering loyalty ultimately paid dividends with Reserve’s most popular track to date at the set's conclusion, ‘Jailbreak the Tesla’. Packed with glitchy samplings of Tesla revvings and high-pitched tyre squeals, this rampant track emphatically enforced itself on the audience with the coinciding effects of the strobe lighting ceasing our ability to see straight for the ensuing 24 hours thereafter. Intriguingly enough, it was the subdued jazz-rap tropes of the LP’s final track, ‘Three Man Weave’, which closed out tonight’s incongruous evening welcoming an effervescent rap trio into its intimate underground-indie demeanour.
Yet if tonight’s set from the Arizona trio proved anything, it was the precariousness of their sitting between a sonic rock and a hard place. Conjuring intensely crucifying rap moments against punk-esque tendencies, Reserve were never able to quite leap into the next ether of sonic proportions. Perhaps due to the childish samplings of Parker strewn throughout, the lack of real spontaneous experimentation proved undoubtedly apparent. Personally, Reserve can certainly capitalise more upon their jazz rap groundings - inciting grander exploits of the popularised fusion of such genres. Indeed, the real “oh shit” moment came not from their titled track, nor the crowd’s enthusiasm, but rather the unrelenting, scratch-out-your-eyeballs nature of Injury Reserve’s singular lighting design: strobe lights.
6.5/10
Injury Reserve's latest debut LP, Injury Reserve, is out now and can be found here.
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