MaxLeon's New Album "Disc -o- Very" Passes The Vibe Check

There’s something about the overall feel and sound of this album that screams cosmocentric, abyss, something out of a space documentary or the perfect music to put on blast when skygazing, i.e. the Northern lights.

“Disc -o- Very” is quite the lengthy record with fourteen tracks, all of which having the element of hip-hop that creatively utilize synth and other modern-sounding equipment for an ethereal experience. MaxLeon seems to have focused on the overall sound, vibe, and connectivity between songs rather than being lyric-heavy despite comprising rap.

Ambience aside, the recurring theme is mainly about personal experiences; how life is seen, how it is lived. Some of which act as a sort of outlet that has ultimately come out as refrains in songs such as “Discovery”, that has this vibrant, positively mind-boggling lengthy introduction followed by the repetition of the phrase “I ain’t no victim”, followed by tracks like “Disc4” and “Radioactive Power”, with the latter being on the slow side, with repetitions of “Why am I so bitter?”

Some tracks are simply personal narratives that don’t touch deeply with the subject matter; it is vague enough to be open to interpretation, but not that vague to be out of touch with the listeners. In “project5”, MaxLeon talks about where they are at in life, and what they want to do or achieve: “Constantly moving, constantly in motion”, “Don’t even know what I’m doing but I’m rolling with it”.

“My Vision”, from the chosen lines of “That boy is dreamin’” and “Sometimes I fall, sometimes I’m scared”, which implicates downward spirals or hardships faced in life, and sometimes we fail despite having dreams. “DiveWaver” comes in a song after, which includes a line saying “Don’t kill the mind, I’ll rebuild it” which can be easily interpreted as resilience.

The following tracks, “-intro”, “7Phantoms”, and “-FlySpaceHam” mostly excel in instrumentals and vibe alone, and what’s neat about them is they match their respective tunes just right. The best part about having an album with more than a couple tracks is you can play around with your concept, and tell the message as extensively as possible, which is what MaxLeon has successfully done.

“-interlude” and “RestStop” seem like they go hand-in-hand, as they are also right next to each other on the track list. Both comprising a monotone, narrative voice, the former features piano, choir-esque background vocals and synth to match, as well as claims like “All love is a consciousness all mixed together” and “Life is just one big divine misunderstanding”. It seems to talk about the longing to correct wrongs. The latter track, however, starts with the words “Hell is not a punishment” right off the bat. It goes to view the concept of hell as more than a place, institution, but a state of mind. It then goes on to ask why people go to dark and torturous places.

Those in-depth, existential questions add a nice touch to the record as a whole, making it more than just a hip-hop album. “ZG”, the eleventh track, is all about dreaming of a different life, talking about ambition and goals: “I’m not ignoring myself this life / I’m backing myself up this life”.

“Discovery-Channel” features a flick-like sound effect in the beginning, piano, a slight husk vocal-wise, then ultimately reveals itself to be about positive self-talk, evident in the following lyrics, with unrelated undertones: “Your efforts will be rewarded / My effort is forever unbounded / I suggest you leave me out of this”. It also contains a repetition of the line “I really mean what I say”.

“Why don’t you feel lost?” is recurrently asked in the final track, “Let Me Feel Lost”. In essence, it’s all about being high, the high life, and quite literally getting lost in the feeling. This acts as a perfect send off to the record; a feel-good end that would make listeners listen to the whole thing again.