I have nothing to say that Wikipedia has not already said: “The self-stylised ‘boy band’ was founded on Internet forum KanyeToThe, leading them to be described as ‘The Internet’s first boy band.’”

[Video]
[6.00]

Will Rivitz: Brockhampton’s drawn a lot of comparisons to Odd Future, and for good reason. They’re a collective of loud, abrasive artists who aren’t afraid to get in your face — “This ain’t clean shit,” brags Matt Champion on the song’s ultimate verse — and more importantly, their blistering energy is addictive. “HEAT” is the choicest cut off their newest album, and it seethes with the unique fury that young folks angry at both the world and the way they interact with it can provide. The beat’s nagging distortion is sublime, a Ronny J-ish composition without the shittiness of the rappers with which the producer usually associates. Its aggression perfectly matches the no-holds-barred force of the MCs featured here, particularly Jobu’s visceral hook near the song’s back half. Champion’s mediocre verse notwithstanding, this is one of the freshest, most energetic, and generally best songs of the year so far, and I’m excited to see Brockhampton continue to blow up from here.
[9]

Julian Axelrod: This is an interesting mix of boilerplate horrorcore and genuinely fascinating bars — Dom McLennon’s depressive spiel and Merlyn Wood’s unhinged turn are the clear standouts for me. They definitely know how to set a mood, with a hook that sounds like coked-up paranoia and a beat that feels like a gritted-teeth comedown. I don’t know how much of that mood I want in my daily life, but there’s just enough interesting stuff here that I might explore the rest of their catalog.
[6]

Tim de Reuse: Lumbering and distorted and veering from hyperaggressive swagger to existential terror to angsty screeching to insufferable smugness — it’s a heady, suffocating atmosphere, and it sounds like the deliberate, meticulous construction of people who knew exactly what they were going for. So, hey, kudos! You did what you set out to do; I don’t think I’d really want to listen to it, though. As an exercise in tone, it’s striking, but in every other way it’s all over the place.
[5]

Alfred Soto: The convincing demonstration of bile gives “Heat” traction for a while — more convincing than the threats of violence. The bass rumbles like a blown muffler while the accusations are as inchoate but articulate as anything by Nas or early Slim Shady.
[6]

Ian Mathers: I’m not 100% convinced that the beautifully blown-out fuzz bass backing isn’t just a particularly clever rip of From the Double Gone Chapel (check out “Stack Up“, for example) with a dash of the synths from Primal Scream’s dub album Echo Dek, but that just means no matter how aggro these guys get I still want to rub the production all over my face like it’s a particularly appealing shag carpet or something. As for that aggro, boy do the different vocalists present an array of toxically masculine tropes I’m either bored by or uncomfortable with, some of them intersecting with other factors like race and probably class in ways that I, a white man from the Canadian lower middle class, feel neither equipped nor particularly eager to hash out in the space of a TSJ blurb. Love the production, though.
[6]

Hannah Jocelyn: What makes some noisy-soul-genre-clusterfuck bands better than others is when there is genuine humanity beneath the obfuscation. It’s why a group like Young Fathers is so good, and how an abrasive band like Algiers can still be accessible. Even Death Grips, an intentionally impenetrable band, occasionally shows a surprisingly broad sense of humor. So a song like this has to have some sort of depth, and “Heat” sometimes does. But for every insightful line (“you’re talking about release dates?/I’m trying to make it till tomorrow”) there’s a misogynistic one around the corner, right until the FUCK YOU stalls the momentum permanently.
[4]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: Brockhampton’s debut album is an ambitious yet scattershot collection of tracks that feels very much like a product of the Internet age. The members met on hip-hop message board KanyeToThe, and it’s hard not to see the album as a bunch of young music nerds coming together to experiment with different styles of rap and R&B. I’m not too fond of their overtly saccharine songs — single “Lamb” is far too garish and album closer “Waste” is a shabby Frank Ocean song that fully embraces the singer’s love for John Mayer — but they’re crucial to understanding the importance of the collective to its members. De facto leader Kevin Abstract has expressed that he started Brockhampton as a way to make friends, and considering his parents weren’t supportive of his homosexuality, the songs that drip New Sincerity are a beautiful representation of the group’s camaraderie and desire for self-expression. Which brings us to “Heat,” an early Odd Future shock-rap number and one of the better tracks on Saturation. The booming bassline is a satisfying assault, but the horror soundtrack sample and the gnarly electric guitar drive the terror home. “Heat” is heavily performative and unlike anything else on the album, so some may find this to be an inaccurate portrayal of the group. But to me, whether this is the real them on a musical or lyrical level is missing the point. On “Heat,” four different rappers (and one, uh, “screamer”) come together to craft a song that’s similar to what they like and come off incredibly cohesive in the process. That sense of disparate unity here is rather touching and, frankly, the most authentic depiction of what Brockhampton are all about.
[6]