Despite it being so early in Genesis Owusu’s career, his music already feels timeless. The Australian-bred mastermind has crafted a musical formula that allows his loftiest concepts of life to be anchored by a wide range of influences that gets filtered through Owusu’s limitless lens. He crashed into everyone’s playlist back in 2017 and ever since then, he has gotten better with every release. Such is the case with STRUGGLER, the artist’s sophomore album.
After the artistic merit and immense praise for Owusu’s debut LP, the pressure was on for the artist to craft something special. What he went with was a neon-tinged LP boasting thrashing melodies that are followed by simplistic beauty, all tied together by Owusu’s sharp lyricism and acrobatic vocals. STRUGGLER finds our hero in the throes of an existential crisis, tossing and turning over the chaos around him while attempting to keep things simple. Entering into a Genesis Owusu project with any expectations would do a great disservice to the artist’s love for unpredictability and thirst for collage-style arrangements, so forget what you think you know about Owusu and allow STRUGGLER to mesmerize you.
A sophomore album is never an easy task, especially when following up on a debut that introduced the world to your elastic vocals and appreciation for so many different sonic realms. Those two aspects of Owusu’s creativity is on full display in his second LP, although they evolved and took on different forms throughout the album’s 11 tracks.
STRUGGLER is a sonic maze with turns that lead you to soulful minimalism and twists that send you down distorted punk-influenced arrangements. The album finds consistency in Owusu’s lyrics that explore the current state of humanity and attempt to make sense of it all. Through his analysis of the world around him, Owusu discovers more about himself and his role in it all, inspiring the softer moments on the album like “See Ya There”. Like a fun house, every song on STRUGGLER promises something different while being strung together by Owusu’s thirst for beauty on the other side of the struggle.
The album kicks off with the infectious single “Leaving the Light”, a hectic introduction with a neck-breaking drum pattern that gets broken down to a thumping bassline. The production of STRUGGLER follows no linear formula, instead, the arrangements attempt to keep up with Owusu’s shining lyricism and otherworldly vocalizations. A moment like “Old Man” has Owusu battling with the idea of a higher power over dense textures that form an onslaught of deep thoughts and high-level musicianship. The chaos of this song is juxtaposed by tracks like the smooth outro, “Stuck to the Fan”. A jazzy arrangement creates the perfect playground for Owusu to take a rest from his racing thoughts for a brief moment of acceptance. Owusu jumps around between these two moods a few times on the album, allowing himself to free fall into his deepest thoughts only to emerge with a newfound acceptance that fuels the structure of STRUGGLER.
Genesis Owusu crafted an out-of-body experience of a sophomore LP. In a fit of cascading synths and lively flows, STRUGGLER has the artist not only attempting to understand the world around him but reimagining his already innovative style.
