We Don't Trust You & We Still Don't Trust You Reviews
We Don't Trust You & We Still Don't Trust You Reviews
WE DON’T TRUST YOU Review: Metro Tries To Be The Hero
By Dylan Barbee
Courtesy of @future on Instagram
Release Date: March 31, 2024
With notable releases and success in the past year, producer Metro Boomin has made quite a name for himself in the rap industry. His 2022 album HEROES & VILLAINS was nominated for best rap album of the year at the Grammys. The producer’s 2023 Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse movie soundtrack was the sound of the summer with songs like “Self Love” with Coi Leray topping the charts.
This year, Metro Boomin reunites with long-time collaborator Future. Their first joint album release, WE DON'T TRUST YOU is the first of their two-album run in 2024. Through a mafia boss aesthetic, Future proves once again that he is the king of being toxic. However, Metro Boomin’s heroic build-ups within the album’s production waters down the dark finesse that they are both striving toward.
This can immediately be heard in the introduction and title track “We Don’t Trust You” where the instrumental buildup of the beat feels off-putting for a Future album. It sounds lackluster as the Metro Boomin beat feels recycled and used as a leftover from his past two projects. This superhero tone cuts deep into Future’s villainous aesthetic, at times stealing the spotlight from the rapper.
This approach can also be heard on songs like the tedious “Ain’t No Love,” and “Young Metro” with the addition of some pointless adlibs from The Weeknd. Other songs that are not worth revisiting were “Slimed In” and “Seen It All” due to their repetitiveness and long runtime.
Fortunately, there are some tracks on WE DON'T TRUST YOU that save the album from its unpromising beginning. On songs like “Type Shit” featuring Travis Scott and Playboi Carti and “Everyday Hustle” featuring Rick Ross, the duo display their ability to work with other artists very well. “Everyday Hustle” has an impressive horn pattern with a memorable sample being used throughout the track that allows both Future and Rick Ross to smoothly flow over.
The best song on this album is “Runnin Outta Time” with Future sharing how he has trust issues and acknowledges that a certain relationship is soon going to come to an end. “But I can’t trust nobody, I was down, wasn’t nobody left, They done turned they back on me, never turned on myself,” Future raps. The ad libs from Bryson Tiller are also a nice addition to this track.
With some notable songs throughout the tracklist, “Like That,” featuring Kendrick Lamar is going to be the one people are still going to be talking about as time passes. Both Future and Kendrick Lamar take shots at rapper Drake over a hardcore trap beat that uses an Eazy-E sample. Lamar criticizes Drake and J Cole for clicking up and name-dropping him on their song “First Person Shooter,” and pronounces himself as the best in the rap game.
Overall, WE DON'T TRUST YOU is an album with Metro Boomin at its forefront. Metro’s overused cinematic superhero production style from the past two years drowns out Future’s style and sound. However, there are still some songs worth remembering from this album.
Rating: 6.5/10
WE STILL DON'T TRUST YOU Review: Disco Saves Trap
By Dylan Barbee
Courtesy of @future on Instagram
Release Date: April 11, 2024
As the hypnotic and experimental production style within the first ten seconds of Future and Metro Boomin’s second album of 2024 begins, it was immediately clear that WE STILL DON'T TRUST YOU was not going to be anything like its predecessor.
An unexpected disco trap aesthetic carries through most of the songs on the album making WE STILL DON'T TRUST YOU an innovative sequel album that deploys many musical elements and genres.
The impressive introduction track is soon followed by other memorable songs like “Drink and Dance,” and “Jealous,” where it's clear that Future is revisiting his previous styles as the dark but transcendent tone sounds similar to his 2017 album HNDRXX. Metro Boomin’s production on “Drink and Dance” is awe-inspiring as the after-hours sound of the song goes from disco to pop to trap and ends with a slow rnb tone.
This late-night drive aesthetic carries into songs like “Luv Bad Bitches” and “Nights Like This,” which both include catchy hooks from Future and could potentially become summer anthems for some listeners.
The main difference between WE STILL DON'T TRUST YOU and its predecessor is that this feels more like a Future album where Metro Boomin is effectively complementing the trap rapper’s cadence rather than just Future rapping over some leftover Spider-Man beats.
However, Metro Boomin’s production cannot go unnoticed. “Right 4 You” is unlike anything the Atlanta producer has ever done before. The beat sounds like a club remix at first that Future impressively adapts to and then soon the track switches its tone near the end to an experimental drum track which ends up paying off for both the artists. The love song “All To Myself” includes a romantic rnb style beat that producer Mike Dean helped Metro Boomin craft, and also serves as a memorable listen due to The Weeknd’s melodic feature.
The Weeknd’s involvement and presence on some songs when contributing adlibs and verses lifts the album up stylistically.
Some of the songs I would not revisit again from the first side of the two-disc album are “Overload,” “Amazing (Interlude),” and “Came to The Party” as they do not fit the tone of the album well and just feel like outliers that go on for too long.
The second side of the album takes on a much more aggressive tone, as both Future and Metro Boomin turn to their Atlanta trap roots to make a fast-paced fully cohesive 7-track mixtape. Songs like “Crazy Clientele” and “Streets Made Me King” are typical but impressive Future songs to listen to.
This side of the album caught me off guard because I was really enjoying what Future and Metro Boomin were doing stylistically in the first half. To hear them go back to their typical style was kind of disappointing. Also, the seven extra songs make the entirety of WE STILL DON'T TRUST YOU to feel bloated.
A$AP Rocky is featured on the song “Show of Hands” where he dedicates his verse to pick a side and diss Drake which further prolongs the beef between the Canadian rapper and many big names in the music industry right now. J Cole is shockingly featured on the long leaked song “Red Leather,” which makes for a fantastic song.
Although there are a few Drake disses throughout the album, and some people online may complain that there are not enough, I would rather remember this experimental body of music for what it is rather than it be overshadowed by the current state of hip-hop right now.
WE STILL DON'T TRUST YOU is an impressive musical achievement for both Future and Metro Boomin marked by its ability to blend and transform the sound of trap into genres like disco and rnb. Although the album is bloated with 25 songs due to the addition of a 7-song trap mixtape, I feel like the album is versatile enough for there to be something on this album that anyone can gravitate towards musically.
Rating: 8.2/10
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