Don Toliver continues to build his resume to be a superstar in the rap genre with his fifth studio album, Octane, but the project doesn’t fully elevate him to that level. Octane features 18 tracks, leaning heavily on extensively autotuned vocals and familiar beats. While the album has some good moments, it feels repetitive and slightly boring overall.
Octane brings a familiar, atmospheric, trap-heavy sound, which Toliver is known for, with heavily autotuned vocals creating an almost droned-out feel on many tracks, such as Body. Toliver rarely strays from familiar territory on the album, with many of the songs feeling like they would fit in on previous projects such as Hardstone Psycho. Because Toliver doesn’t experiment with new flows or production styles much on the album, the tracks blur together slightly, and the album isn’t super dynamic.
The album starts off strong with E85, which sets the scene for the rest of the album and takes the listener into the world of Don Toliver. The sample of Chest Pain (I Love) by Malcolm Todd is very well done and very interesting. Next, Toliver follows with Body, which samples Rock Your Body by Justin Timberlake. This track doesn’t land as well; the production feels awkward, and the song is extremely repetitive and boring.
The album includes features from artists such as Yeat, Travis Scott, and Teezo Touchdown. Yeat’s feature on Rendezvous came across well; his performance is smooth, and he fits in surprisingly well. The iconic duo of Travis Scott and Don Toliver brought us Rosary this time, which has a bit more of a relaxed feel compared to the rest of the album. The two mesh really nicely, and this was one of my favorite tracks on the album. Comparatively, I didn’t enjoy Teezo Touchdown’s feature on All The Signs at all. This is one of my least favorite tracks on the album; it just feels uneven and not smooth at all.
Overall, the album doesn’t really reinvent Toliver’s sound and doesn’t come across as extremely creative or revolutionary. It has good moments, but I don’t know how much replay value will come from this album. It is pretty mid: none of the songs really stood out as great top hit songs.
6/10
