Review: Wiardon, ROAD MUSIC

The 20-year-old Austinite’s latest project showcases his versatility as a producer while sharpening his already capable rap abilities. Not counting March’s collaborative EP with Los Angeles artist Murs, on which he solely supplied instrumentals, ROAD MUSIC ends Wiardon’s year-plus drought without a tape. On this 12-track May release, the Eastside rhymer crosses some familiar territory: ducking police, dropping pins inside 78702, and naming songs after famous athletes. But the beats, no longer brimming with rambunctious 808s or the grime of New York State streets, create a somewhat subdued undercurrent matching a young man evidently battling grief. As a rapper, Wiardon’s penchant for inserting plainly bold, autobiographical, and/or braggadocious one-liners (his love for Neiman Marcus especially comes to mind) is his best tool. Here, his most striking bars pertain to how he’s dealing with sorrow. His pain seeps through on album closer “Red Skies Outro.” “I just act like it don’t hurt, but that shit hit me deep/ Lost my brother to the streets and it made me a beast,” he says on the track’s refrain, before receiving an escort out by an increasingly haunting vocal sample. With Complex now taking notice, it’s getting spooky.