Legends Never Die in Bloomington, MN

In December of 2019, rapper/songwriter
Juice WRLD
died at the height of fame, just days after his 21st birthday. This tragic loss came months after the rapper had taken his second studio album,
Death Race for Love
, to the top of the charts, his distinctive blend of emotionally vulnerable lyricism and infectious genre-bending songcraft becoming a ubiquitous sound unto itself. Posthumous album
Legends Never Die
arrived less than a year after his passing, and offers further evidence of the late artist's gifts for self-inspection and exceptionally constructed hooks. "Conversations" is as catchy as a song about demonic visions and mental disturbance gets, with soft synth lines and a booming trap beat underscoring
's anxious, depressive observations. "Tell Me U Love Me" gets some assistance from
Trippie Redd
and the gentle, heartbroken ballad "Life's a Mess" features vocals from
Halsey
.
's general subject matters -- despair, substance abuse issues, loneliness and searching for authentic happiness -- already make for emotionally weighty songs, and listening to him sing from beyond gives
an impenetrably somber atmosphere. Allegedly
recorded over 2,000 songs that were unreleased at the time of his death, and the ones that surface here are in some ways stronger than the often disjointed and sometimes overly dramatic material that made up the albums released while he was alive.
is as strong a collection of
songs as any, with already-searing songs made more intense by the shadow of their departed creator looming over the album. ~ Fred Thomas