Blanco Brown
managed to ride the "Old Town Road" wave right to the top of the charts when his effervescent "The Git Up" became a viral sensation in the summer of 2019. Striking while the iron was hot,
Brown
delivered the full-length debut
Honeysuckle & Lightning Bugs
in October, just a few months after "The Git Up" made the leap from TikTok to the Billboard charts. Such a quick turnaround is evident in the threadbare nature of the album. Lasting a shade over a half-hour,
nevertheless feels sluggish, due in part to the rubbery bass and electronic futzing of his vocals (i.e., all the elements that make this seem like the "trailer trap" fusion
purports it to be. While this means that
Honeysuckle
sounds more like modern hip-hop than Southern-friend hick-hop, it does give the album a heavy, dour blandness that doesn't sit well with
's decision to signify his country roots by ratcheting up the sentimentality. This blend of mawkishness and dank beats is pretty much the opposite of what "The Git Up" promised. The fact that
did hit the bullseye once just makes
seem like even more of a humorless slog than it actually is. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine