Sueco Still Supreme with Third Album “PARTY’S OVER”
Sueco has been one of the more interesting artists to follow as of late. Under the “Sueco the Child” moniker, he was a member of the prime Soundcloud Rapper wave around 2018, particularly with his one massive hit, 2019’s “Fast”, a song that might be familiar to you if you were on TikTok at the time. With stringy blue hair and overall looking distressingly unhealthy, Sueco then abruptly took a long hiatus, got clean, and when he came back to music, he symbolically dropped the “the Child” from his name, dyed his hair black, and started making music with a heavier rock and emo influence, cemented with one of my personal albums of the year for 2022, It Was Fun While It Lasted. His story is legitimately inspiring, and the pain he went through doubles as crushingly personal material for his music.
As for his newest album PARTY’S OVER, it is symbolic of a widening of scope and an expansion of style, as Sueco has now fully embraced the limelight in his new guise, even dying his hair neon red to be as eye-catching as possible, or perhaps an on-the-nose tribute to Danger Days-era Gerard Way.
“BUTTERFLY” is one of the most perfectly made-to-be-a-concert-opener songs I’ve heard since Ghost’s “Peacefield”. It’s atmospheric, epic in scale, and builds wonderfully to a truly massive-sounding crescendo, which, with Sueco’s focus on live performance in the past few years, is fitting.
“GOING UNDER” is one of the more interesting songs I have heard all year. With lyrics focused on the stresses of performance and fame, and an incredibly catchy chorus, this song is my personal favorite of the album. However, the most obvious note for this song is its guest feature, Japanese band Paledusk, who inject a fascinating spin on the genre into the song, even beyond the experience of hearing familiar music in an unfamiliar language.
Another of the lead singles continued Sueco’s penchant for movie soundtracks started with the Sonic the Hedgehog movie of all things. Off of the Scream 7 soundtrack, “REARRANGING SCARS” serves in the movie as the “bad influence” character’s introduction, something that is hilarious as it is fitting.
Image via Instagram
An associate of the late, great Oliver Tree, Sueco has a particular skill for fusing genuine moments with exaggerated characterization, particularly with the brutally real yet funny “HEY MISTER”, as well as for his public appearance, keeping fans sated with consistent posts, lead singles, collaborations, and live shows. His music videos, of which there are five from the thirteen-track album, are all dripping with style, symbolism, and manic fun fused with heart-rending suffering.
With the title track interestingly as the album closer, “PARTY’S OVER” is one of the most flooring listening experiences I’ve had recently. The intro combines just about every other song’s title in an unsteady, oscillating juxtaposion of lo-fi acoustic and wall-of-sound digital. Once the song proper starts, the influence from My Chemical Romance becomes clear. Love lost tinges pained chorus after chorus, with energy switching between melancholy and mania, with a turning point coming with Sueco’s confession that he wrote the album about someone, before making peace with himself and his past with a repeated “fuck that, I ain’t going back”. The album closes with one last overwhelming blast and emotional comedown, ending how the album started, with the word “butterfly”.
Sueco’s style and genre are a fascinating case study in and of itself. Certainly carrying some rap influences from his past career himself, even when he features guest rappers such as WesGhost and blackbear, Sueco’s current metalcore-ish, neo-emo sound takes so much influence from so many places, from brutally heavy breakdowns to catchy, melodic choruses, that an exact definition eludes me. He can, and does, feature higher-pitched melodies like more poppy metalcore, but also growls and screams from something much heavier. If you were a fan of emo titans back in the day, or metalcore now, Sueco’s PARTY’S OVER will certainly hold something you’re after.
