Eversince

by Bladee

Released May 25, 2016 via YEAR0001

Reviewed May 27, 2021

Top tracks (based on community voting)

Sugar (43%), Skin (40%), Who Goes There (38%)

Bladee has a profound way of channeling his emotions, no matter the album. But it is rare to find anything in his catalogue as potent as Eversince. The songwriting is completely detached from reality as we know it, while entirely encompassing the reality Bladee presides over. The instrumentals perfectly coincide with the tones, and the emotions—or lack thereof—present in Bladee’s vocals and lyrical contributions. The album’s collective iciness, although talked about in great detail, is what accentuates Bladee’s image as a behemoth of pain. The tundra that these soundscapes create allow the words to echo out, helplessly unapologetic. – Ben (Synth) (9.5/10)

Bladee’s Eversince is a divisive and raw album that can best be described to newcomers as a robot whining off-key into a microphone for 39 minutes, and God, does he make that sound work. Hiding depression behind bouncy synths and a thick coating of autotune, it’s easy to ignore Bladee’s great (and devastating) lyrics behind the wall he puts up. You hear of artists “using their voice as instruments,” but Bladee manages to use the auto itself as a channel to make himself sound more detached. And the sound of the album itself is years ahead of its time. As good as Bladee’s performance is, the Whitearmor production almost entirely overshadows it. Practically all the instrumentals here simultaneously function as bangers and perfect backdrops to desolate, icy soundscapes where Bladee croons about mental demons and heartbreak. – Alan (8.8/10)

The debut mixtape from Bladee, Gluee (2014), was a monumental contributor to the melodic-cloud-trap shape that contemporary hip-hop has assumed recently. Eversince is his first album on a commercial label, but more importantly, the follow-up to what put him on the map. His trademark whining autotune that lathers all corners of vocal expression is janky in an endearing way, complementing similarly nocturnal beats. Opener ‘Who Goes There’ whimsically hands out dissonant, sugary keys and bouncing, thick bass that avoids being overbearing, for example. A one-up Eversince has over Gluee is that it’s mixed a lot better. Vocals are crisp in quality whilst remaining sluggish and slurred. Instead of the collective slosh of adhesive struggling to keep everything together on Bladee’s last effort, there’s an established hierarchy of timbres. There are infrequent but gratifying lyrical details that give Eversince some legitimacy on other fronts, too; Ecco2k’s multi-entendre “going ghost / feel like Phantom of the Opera / shifting my persona” on ‘So What’ or Bladee’s against-the-grain rhyme scheme, “I love wasting money / I think that they love me / I don’t love them back though” on ‘Rip’ are minute surprises that keep listeners on their toes, despite the slightly derivative flows. Eversince is the basis for a promising career, should Bladee continue to expand upon this unique love-it-or-hate-it soundscape. – Cam (6.8/10)