Heaven Or Hell — Don Toliver: Review
Recent Cactus Jack breakout star Don Toliver releases his debut album off the heels of his MVP performance on JACKBOYS and his first hit single No Idea, but this album leaves you with more questions than answers.
The first time mainstream music listeners had ever heard of Don Toliver was on Travis Scott’s 2018 project ASTROWORLD on the track CAN’T SAY. His high pitched voice and aggressive delivery on the track made it one of my favorites off of that project. Maybe too similar to Travis Scott, but Toliver fit the album well and enhanced the song in ways that Travis could not with Toliver’s excellent singing voice, but those similarities to Travis alarmed me and left me tentative about his fortitude as a solo artist. Fast forward 2 years and we finally have his first solo project, and it’s exactly what I had feared.
The project starts quite strong. The intro track is fitting. It’s built like a mood-setter, it’s really how an intro should be, with its minimal production and Toliver asking the listener “what brings you to church this evening?” It built my expectations for the project as hook-laden, dark, and minimal trap music, but the intro doesn’t come without its share of flaws. I thought that the small intro portion was Travis Scott with my first cursory listen. Lyrically, the track is weak, but that’s not really what I and other listeners are really here for anyway. It’s a dark trap album, not some lyrical boom-bap. The intro set my bar to a moderate level, but it still left me fearing a Travis-clone-project, and as the album progressed, that’s what I pulled from this album most, this is a Travis Scott album. It’s a Great Value Rodeo front to back. Even the characteristics that made Rodeo great, such as the synths, drums, and autotuning of Toliver’s vocals, feel like they missed the mark one way or another.
Throughout the project, I feel like there’s something wrong with the mixing and mastering. Why is the beat always so quiet? The blaring, dark synths and powerful drums are what makes this style of trap music so enjoyable, yet these qualities feel overrun by either overly loud vocals or a too-quiet beat. There’s no better example of this than track 2, Euphoria featuring Kaash Paige and Travis Scott. The sample loop is interesting, but then that’s drowned out by the synths, then the synths are drowned out by the bass. The entire song feels like bass with near-muted synths over it.
On a side note for Euphoria though, if this is Don Toliver’s album, why is he only on one minute of his own three and a half minute track? I can just feel the invisible hand of Travis Scott controlling this album as I listen. It makes me question whether Toliver’s near cloning of Travis on this project is either by habit or because Travis made it that way.
When it comes to vocal performances as well, it’s also very hit-or-miss. Cardigan, No Idea and Had Enough are my three favorites off of this. For how low-effort this project feels, with the recycling of flows and severely lacking lyricism, these tracks keep it from diving under. Their catchy hooks about heartbreak and the production that should be expected from a Cactus Jack project come together to make the prototypes for what this project SHOULD HAVE sounded like, but it feels like the rest of the tracklisting is filled with lackluster performances all-around.
Thematically, a lot of “she” rapping. This is to be expected of Toliver, but as the album and Toliver continue, he doesn’t progress the relationship or build a narrative around it. It’s almost as if each track is just a different party that Toliver and this “she” went to every night and they got hammered and abused drugs together. It gets repetitive after five tracks, and it’s a twelve track project. There’s no emotion anywhere on this project.
No Idea gave me immense hope for this project, but I leave this project thoroughly unimpressed and wondering where that potential went. The flashes of hope on this album, in particular Toliver’s hooks, are always immediately overshadowed by a negative that makes this project something that I won’t find myself going back to unless for whatever reason I “missed something.” Something feels weirdly off about this project. It sounds like if a Travis Scott superfan tried to make Days After Rodeo.
I can’t help but compare this project to another one of Travis Scott’s proteges, Sheck Wes, and his breakout debut MUDBOY. Heaven Or Hell left me intrigued to revisit the project, and in hindsight, MUDBOY completely outclasses this project front to back. MUDBOY was uniquely Sheck Wes and contained some experimentation that the trap genre had never seen before (Chippi Chippi, Gmail, WESPN, Danimals), Heaven Or Hell, however, holds absolutely zero uniqueness or redeeming qualities besides the aforementioned No Idea.
Final Verdict — 4/10
Is Don Toliver too dependent on support from Cactus Jack to be successful on his own? Heaven Or Hell doesn’t leave me feeling promising about the once potential-filled CAN’T SAY, artist.
Article Written by Ari Partrich | @ariprtrch
