I used to think that Blood Orange or Devonté Hynes was somewhat of a B-tier artist someone that I couldn't see myself getting into but that all changed with the release of his 2018 album "Negro Swan", a beautifully crafted R&B/Indie Rock record with some fantastic songs like "Hope", "Charcoal Baby", "Chewing Gum" and "Dagenham Dream" as well as some great features from names such as A$AP Rocky, Diddy and Tei Shi. But honestly the album didn't need them all that much, Hynes has a brilliant way of using his voice and the voice of other features to his advantage, in a similar way to how Kanye uses voices in his music, they actually become a part of the music, not just a layer on top of an instrumental. Maybe this is a step too far but I'm willing to call him the Kanye of the current R&B scene. And no surprise, Hynes shows up yet again on this album with more quality, slightly more stripped back than "Negro Swan" but I think that's normal given this is considered a mixtape and not a full album (I'm still going to call it an album) but the skeleton of the record has a lot of similarities to his 2018 project, for example "Gold Teeth" off "Angel's Pulse" sounds pretty similar to "Chewing Gum" off "Negro Swan" but I'm not mad at little similarities like that because they're both great songs.
Some highlights off "Angel's Pulse":
-"I Wanna C U": sounds like a classic late 90s early 00s song kind of the same vibe as "Hope" from "Negro Swan", really nice song to bike or drive around to.
-"Dark & Handsome": probably my favorite song on the record has some really nice additional vocals and production from Toro Y Moi. The second part is probably my favorite, especially when his voice gets pitched down and the tempo seems to slow down.
-"Good For You": really nice indie rock and R&B combination, another song that's just really nice to drive around to, I think that's what Hynes' music was meant for.
-"Gold Teeth": one of the only rap focused songs on the album with a classic Project Pat hook, great backing vocals from Tinashe and Hynes as well as a great verse from Gangsta Boo a pretty convincing female rapper.
-"Take It Back": The beat on the intro and first part of this song sounded immediately familiar to me, it sounds a lot like the beat for "Bloody Waters" off of the Black Panther soundtrack that was coordinated by Kendrick Lamar himself. The bridge is beautiful and leads into JOBA's verse that I was crazy excited for given I'm a pretty big BROCKHAMPTON fan, he 100% delivered you have to listen to this song.
There were a couple songs I didn't enjoy much, those being "Baby Florence (Figure)" and "Seven Hours Part 1", neither of them hit home and I can't really describe why, they just didn't do anything for me.
Overall Hynes delivered as a mixtape, if he had considered this a full blown album it might've felt a bit lacking and skeletal. Solid 7/10.