Artist – Album: Mac Miller – Faces
Label: REMember
Release Date: 2014
For Fans Of: MF Doom, Tyler the Creator, Kendrick Lamar
Rating: 9/10
The 85-minute monolith by Pittsburgh rap star Mac Miller was overlooked in its release, but in its reflection, the album adds incredible context to the MC and producer’s recent drug overdose.
Executively produced by Miller himself, “Faces” was released as a free mixtape — the last he would ever release.
With production features by icons such as 9th Wonder and Earl Sweatshirt, as well as vocal features by Ab-Soul, Schoolboy Q and Vince Staples, it’s an amazement that this record — with the extensive run length in mind — didn’t blow up more.
Besides being featured on Rolling Stone’s best 2014 rap albums and given a 7.3 rating by Pitchfork, the album received much of the similar response as his previous studio album, “Watching Movies with the Sound Off.”
Where “Faces” differs from any of the artist’s other studio work is in the central themes of mental health. His other album and mixtapes often had much more of a feel-good sound to them.
Song titles including “Angel Dust,” “It Just Doesn’t Matter,” “Therapy,” “Funeral,” “Insomniak” or “Apparition” focused on Miller’s outgoing depiction of his mental instabilities and the honest portrayal of his drug addiction.
Rem Jensen | Argonaut
The sounds on the record keep this idea alive with psychedelic and hazy production throughout the track. With 24 songs to digest, the listening process of “Faces” is not to be trifled with.
Crunchy, lo-fi drum samples underneath soft jazz instrumentals take up the bulk of the run length. But harder hitting songs such as “Diablo” or “Angel Dust” take Miller’s once common approach to hip-hop to the under folds of the album.
The listener can use these aforementioned, run-of-the-mill songs to soothe the in-betweens of jazz rap sermons fighting depression and angst with fame and money, which show the record is now more enlightening than ever.
Lyric snippets speak in cavernous echoes of these depressive themes, discussing drug habits, the human condition and a general avoidance of issues. Songs such as “Malibu,” “Funeral” or “San Francisco” explore Miller’s life and surroundings from an extremely troubled point of view — a drastic shock to listeners only familiar with his poppier albums, 2018’s “Swimming,” or 2016’s “The Divine Feminine.”
The album makes sense why it dove under radar, but it surely will become a staple — if not a magnum opus — in Miller’s discography.
This onslaught of introspective poetry from the millionaire’s perspective rivals very few in terms of an artist’s depiction of what they go through — or at one point— went through.
“Faces” can be compared to albums such as Nick Drake’s “Pink Moon,” even Elliot Smith’s “Either/Or,” for its expressive nature, detailing the artist’s struggle with depression and drug addiction alongside fame before his recent overdose.
Albums are rarely released prior to an artist’s death that depict the person who would eventually lead themselves to surrendering to their art-inspiring vices in both a listenable and honest expression.
Even if it was originally intended to be just another release by the hip-hop artist, “Faces” will cement itself as a hardly comparable lyrical expression of a suicidal musician.
Remington Jensen can be reached at [email protected]