Local Review: Capo – Camp Crush

Capo
Camp Crush

DSB
Street Date: 02.18
Capo = My Bloody Valentine + Disasteradio + Beck 

Camp Crush feels like a ’90s shoegaze fever dream set to a hip hop drum beat. The guitars and vocals are heavily distorted. The bass undulates in every song, often modulating between two main notes under a constant drumbeat. Considering Capo’s body of work, which tends to skew more towards rap, (check out “Pull Up” from Capo’s 2021 album Static to see what I’m talking about), the flirtation with droney, psychedelic shoegaze is certainly an unexpected twist, but it’s one I think Capo does well. 

While fairly simplistic, each song of Camp Crush is atmospheric and easy to dive into. Can I understand what the lyrics are underneath all the distortion? Absolutely not. But I don’t think this detracts from the beauty of the EP and the show of versatility that Capo is able to bring to the table. 

“S.O.B” (feat. American Toast) in particular reminds me the most of Beck, almost serving as the tumultuous Act III of the five-song EP—this is my personal favorite of Camp Crush. The guitar interludes in between verses have a dark quality, and the bass line is just delicious when it kicks back in. “The End” (feat. Daytona, Craig Lucid), is an earworm with a more sunny, carefree feel to it and leaves the EP with an optimistic ending.

It’s clear that Capo meshes hip hop chops with shoegaze sensibilities, and Camp Crush feels like an experiment in production that went pleasantly well. That being said, my only critique would be that there could be more variation between songs with more dynamism, particularly with the drum beats. There are sections where everything is heavily distorted except for the drums, which are consistently clean and don’t quite seem to fit the overall mood for those parts. However, I think Camp Crush shows Capo’s knack for production. I’m personally invested in watching Capo to see what he comes up with next.— Ali Shimkus

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