Steve Lacy – Apollo XXI (2019)

Steve Lacy – Apollo XXI

Steve Lacy has been the hot topic, the behind-the-scenes producer and studio-everyman for the last few years. Making his way into the mainstream with the hip-hop band/collective The Internet, he released his first truly stellar album with them back in 2018. That record, Hive Mind, leaned into Lacy as a virtuosic instrumentalist and producer who had developed a warm guitar sound akin to Mac DeMarco (an influence Lacy acknowledges was huge). The year before that, Lacy had a production credit on Kendrick Lamar’s Damn. and in 2018, he produced Raven Lenae’s amazing debut EP Crush. Leading up to the release of this, his full-length debut Apollo XXI, he’s been busy contributing to Solange’s When I Get Home and some of the best songs on Vampire Weekend’s new album. Needless to say, people have been awaiting Apollo XXI with bated breath, and for the most part, he delivers. The second track off Apollo, “Like me” is an immense 9 minute medley of Lacy’s distinct styles, shifting from singing to raping to guitar and employing lush harmonies and near trap production. Throughout the record, Lacy proves that he can handle the album himself for a full 43 minutes; he writes the songs, plays the instruments and sings with a laidback L.A. swagger, especially on “Lay Me down,” where an infectious guitar is elevated with sunny punchy vocals that are firmly in the driver’s seat. “N Side” is another fun summery jam that masquerades it's introspective look inside the 21-year-old’s process. There are only a few points on Apollo, where it seems that Lacy’s instrumentation is a little too bare or uninteresting to really carry the song, “In Lust We Trust” is catchy but kind of slinks along distractingly and “Basement Jack” is a little too slight to really change the pace up the way it could. These are small gripes and Apollo XXI is a beautiful and fun little album. It’s not the game changer I think Steve Lacy is capable of, but it is a stellar debut from a musician I am always excited to hear from.

~8.0

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