Conan Gray's debut album, "Kid Krow" dropped just a couple of hours ago but I am ready to give you a review of the full body of work: The album revolves around the animal that Grays identifies the most with, the crow; which is both a symbol of trickery and mysterious dread. This album represents the first big step into the world of music for the 21 years old kid from Texas that rose to fame thanks to his entertaining youtube content and his melodic singing voice, and the result couldn't have been better. "Kid Krow" sounds like the stream of consciousness of a young adult riddled between a constant sense of nostalgia for a long-gone childhood and the difficulties of navigating adult life through failed relationships and social anxiety. The opening track, "Comfort Crowd", is the perfect opener for a body of work that dwells into almost comforting melancholia which gets quickly swept away by tracks such as "Wish you were sober", "Maniac" or "Checkmate" that guide the attention of the listener to rocky relationships and incoherent lovers from which Conan distance himself. This peak of emotional independence is swiftly blown away by the following tracks "The cut that always bleeds" and "Fight or flight" which depict a broken Conan trying desperately to hold on to a lover that metaphorically keeps him on a leash. It is in this type of environment that Gray's ability in songwriting shows its true colors, highlighting the artist's capacity to convey universally shared feelings through direct and cutting lyrics. After criticizing the teenage recklessness in "Affluenza" and celebrating his beloved friends in the ode to friendships that is the interlude "(Can we be friends)", the tone of the album takes another abrupt turn with the track "Heather" which is the story of an unrequited love that is told through the desperate wails of the singer, helplessly wishing he could be the object of interest of his loved one. As the album reaches its second to last track, the nostalgic "Little league", Gray takes more of an existential turn by recalling his past spent living in a small town and how quickly it faded. The last song on the record is the emotional "The story" which sounds like a collection of life experiences sewn together by the hands of the singer that serves the purpose of creating the first step for his future work.
Overall the album is a neatly crafted body of work both from a musical and lyrical perspective; it is an impressive collage of life that tells the story of the ups and downs of it in an embraceable manner that most people can relate to.
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