New World Depression

Say what you will of their notoriously unruly behavior, $uicideboy$ fans know how to leverage collective power. The loyal cohort helped catapult the New Orleans duo’s cathartic emo-trap to a first official album debut within the Billboard Top 10. They’ve also come down hard when $uicideboy$’s menacing dirges for drug binges and depressive episodes past don’t meet expectations. On *New World Depression*, $crim and Ruby da Cherry’s first full album since 2022, the cousins address this doubt and dedication in equal measure, introducing newly measured textures to outline the long journey from a dark-sided fast life to international success. Sobriety has only synthesized $uicideboy$’s perspective on drug dependence and depression. That personal progress leaves these 13 tracks more meditative than ever, despite the bacchanalia still simmering on the back burner. Triplet flows and pounding 808s link the different moments across this record, but $crim and Cherry find new pockets to play in, maintaining a thread through their work without tweaking a style until it frays. “Are You Going to See the Rose in the Vase, or the Dust on the Table” channels the joy of Southern icons Big K.R.I.T. and Kevin Gates, while “Us Vs. Them” clatters and cascades through all the movements of a jazz symposium, the kind that lays $uicideboy$’s New Orleans heritage thrillingly bare. $crim’s new beats still favor classic Memphis flows rejuvenated in post-2010s cloud-rap sound baths. But his elegant touches on *New World Depression* still allow for playful experimentation, moments where Ruby da Cherry or $crim take unexpected leaps to tumble through vignettes recalling near-death nadirs and cloud-nine career highlights; $crim even throws in a snippet from a news interview with a confessed serial killer. With no features and just one remix, $uicideboy$ stick to what they’ve learned over a hard-won decade in the scene on *New World Depression*—and cook up something entirely new in the process.

$uicideboy$’s fourth album, ‘New World Depression,’ is preoccupied with the bleak reality that remains after the credits roll.