Loyle Carner- 'Yesterday's Gone' Album Review

Loyle Carner- ‘Yesterday’s Gone’

It’s extremely difficult to define Loyle Carner’s style of music. His tracks have always successfully harnessed a vast array of influences and genres, often culminating in something special and somewhat unique. Emotionally-fuelled words paired with crisp production have since become a staple of the South London-born lyricist over the past 2 years since his first single ‘BFG’. Now, in 2017, Carner has finally released his highly-anticipated debut album ‘Yesterday’s Gone’.

The 15 tracks successfully combine jazzy guitar chord backing tracks, with mournful, melancholic bars that gives this inauguration album a sense of power that enables it to become genreless. It’s not quite hip-hop, it’s not quite grime, it’s not quite contemporary jazz, it’s a glorious jumble of all of these influences and more that results in greatness and excellence.

Carner’s immense lyrical dexterity makes him extremely diverse compared to other modern MC’s, his verses are not brags about fast cars and beautiful women, they are very down-to-earth words that are closer to Benjamin Zephaniah than Drake. And this aspect of his music therefore enables this album to resonate more with the domestics, the people who understand the emotions Carner is describing, love, loss, pain, guilt, fear, family and the listeners can comprehend and appreciate these.

When analysing the superb nature of this album, it is impossible to forget about recognising the efforts of Carner’s producer Rebel Kleff (who produced all the tracks and features on ‘No Worries’ & ‘NO CD’). Kleff has gifted Carner with a collection of special beats that must’ve been a dream for Carner to spit over due to the fact the beats sound both unique and universal at the same time, making it simple for an MC to rap on, whilst also sounding complex.

Overall, ‘Yesterday’s Gone’ is an assortment of sentiments which feel truly special when listened to. Carner can expect a big future if ‘Yesterday’s Gone’ is anything to go by.

Read my description of Loyle Carner as part of my '10 Artists to look out for in 2017' here!

Overall Rating- 9/10

Fave Songs- ‘Mean It in the Morning’, ‘Damselfly’, ‘Ain’t Nothing Changed’, ‘Florence’, ‘Mrs C’, ‘Sun of Jean’

Least Fave Songs- ‘Yesterday’s Gone’