Cold Visions by Bladee

You know that moment when your GPS reroutes you through a dark, endless tunnel, and you realize halfway in that there’s no signal and no end in sight? That’s Cold Visions. Bladee’s latest 30-track sonic swamp is a full hour of distorted, claustrophobic noise that leaves you wishing for an escape hatch before you’re submerged in his chaotic, “rage” style experiment.

This album represents a return to Bladee’s darker, more aggressive sound, but somewhere between the obnoxious overuse of rage beats and the emotionless autotune drawl, it’s a return no one asked for. The production is mind-numbingly repetitive, with bass drops and synths so distorted they sound like an old mixtape running through a broken speaker. The endless 808s feel less like music and more like being punched repeatedly in a void, while Bladee’s apathetic delivery only adds to the bleakness.

The album’s bloated 30 tracks might fool you into thinking there’s variety here. Spoiler: there’s not. Sure, there are a couple moments where the intensity lets up just enough for you to catch a breath—like on “Don’t Wanna Hang Out” where Bladee’s melancholic vocals almost feel intentional. But that’s before you’re yanked back into the swirling vortex of overproduced noise with songs that blend together so indistinguishably that by track 15, you’ll be questioning your will to live.

Lyrically, this album flirts with some introspection, but Bladee’s half-hearted attempts to explore his existential crisis are drowned in the soupy production. One track is literally called “Don’t Do Drugz” and at just over 90 seconds, it manages to say absolutely nothing. In fact, many of these tracks feel like snippets of half-baked ideas Bladee never bothered to flesh out.

Ultimately, Cold Visions is a 64-minute slog through some of Bladee’s most uninspired material. Diehard Drain Gang fans might find some solace in the occasional Yung Lean feature or familiar motifs, but for the rest of us? This is one “vision” you’ll want to look away from.