R&B sensation Brent Faiyaz released his 2023 mixtape “Larger Than Life” on Oct. 27, receiving mixed reviews from fans. Although the project had its highs and lows, sonically Faiyaz impressed with great production, making the tape a great listen.
The tape kicks off with an intro track, but the first song, “Last One Left,” has Faiyaz and Lil Gray both speaking about a relationship where people are gossiping about them, while Missy Eliiot’s refrain repeats in the background. Next is “Forever Yours” in which Faiyaz confesses his love to a girl, the kind that he has never experienced before, most likely due to his known toxicity. Faiyaz goes back to describing his player lifestyle in “Best Time,” where he flexes his fame and how he can give a girl the “best time she’s ever had.”
One of the two singles, “Moment of Your Life” was the best song on the project. The love song has bouncy and lively instrumentals, combined with deep and well-thought-out lyrics. Many weak R&B cuts tend to struggle lyrically, but Faiyaz and the featured artist, Coco Jones, capture the feeling of intimacy in a way that isn’t strange or disturbing, but instead, captivating.
The next big standout is “Upset,” which features Tommy Richman and FELIX!. The song has the catchiest chorus on the entire tape, a hard-hitting 808 and features a strong verse from Richman which helps encapsulate the vibe of the track. The song is seemingly about Faiyaz going through a messy breakup with his partner, and him attempting to recover by hiding his emotions.
Although the standouts are impressive, it’s hard to ignore one of the glaring problems. The album has slim pickings when it comes to new tracks. The project features 14 songs, but two are skits and one is an intro track. On top of that, two of the songs were singles released prior to the rest of the album, so in total, fans only got 9 new songs off the album. This made the margin for error on the new tracks low, putting Faiyaz on thin ice that he did not capitalize on. The songs “Wherever I Go”, “WY@” and “Pistachios” fail to capture the same magic as the rest of the songs.
Another low point of the album is the notably disappointing length of several tracks. Although the tape being 36 minutes in total is a huge positive, songs like “Forever Yours” and “Best Time” were way too short, each at below two minutes in length. Others like “WY@” and “Pistachios” felt very dragged out and could have been shortened from their three-minute-plus run time.
But when looking at the album for what it is, the project has lots of great songs. Faiyaz impresses lyrically, always telling a story to his fans who can relate to their own lives through his words. The production was also very creative and grand throughout, especially the work of Dpat who helped produce “Moment of Your Life”, “Best Time” and more.
