Photo by Charlie Claymon
Versatility. That’s what Samron Agnew wants people to notice and appreciate about his new project, SCREAMO, and for good reason. The project was released after Samron did a short amount of time in jail, coming from a place of pent up anger. He displays a wide variety of emotions by releasing his inner rage, creating a small bundle of electrifying tracks. This whole project has a dark energy, almost as eerie as the cover art for it. Through SCREAMO listeners experience both cinematic storytelling and energetically raw music, all sticking to one theme.
SCREAMO consists of four tracks, two produced by dr. alien and two produced by fades, a good friend of Samron. “This project isn’t my typical sound whatsoever. I was having a bad couple of days and I was fucking angry so I decided to release that through music. Everybody who knows me knows I’ve been fucking with Jake since we were 15, that’s my brother. He produces damn near all my music, that’s more of a relationship than anything. dr. alien is someone who I’ve been cool with for some time and who’s sound I liked and personally enjoyed, but it never really fit with what I was trying to do until now, so naturally I had to get him on the tape. Believe it or not, I made this entire project in 2 days. It just dropped, but that’s only because I just went to county jail for a week.”
Contradictory to its’ title, opening song “LULLABY” does anything but put listeners to sleep. Samron jumps out yelling over an instrumental that sounds like it belongs in the soundtrack of a horror movie. The beat sounds dead itself, in the most genius way possible. There’s a small break in this track that has a bit of classic rap speaking to the versatility of Samron. He follows up with “YEAH!”, another quick hit with heavy bass. The tweaking of vocals on here almost sounds like there are two different people rapping. Here is where the mood music closes out and the storytelling begins.
“KILL HIM!” is the third and perhaps the darkest of all four songs. It tells a gruesome murder story and has a demonic like speech before ending with a chant of, “If you ever see me you should probably run!” This is definitely the climax of SCREAMO. The project closes with “NIGHTMARE” in which Samron speaks to his own demons. This one is much different than the other three sonically, but still fits content-wise. The flow used on this one is speedy and leaves minimal room for breathing in between bars. All of these songs are short and raw, almost snippet length, giving off a very punk feel. It’s easy to hear that these songs weren’t forced or that there wasn’t much time spent overthinking.
Samron gave an extensive response talking about the SCREAMO EP and how it came to be. “Originally it was all supposed to be screaming, like “LULLABY,” but then I decided to go for a mood, a feeling, rather than a sonic sound. That’s when it all started to come together. I did “LULLABY” and “YEAH!” in like 3 hours total and liked both tracks but knew the project needed more artistry to be considered a “project” in my eyes, so I made “KILL HIM” which is straight moshpit music with an evil storyline recited throughout. I was in love with what I had, remembered a song I did about a month ago called “nightmare interlude.” I did that shit in literally 15 minutes. I freestyled the hook and the verse was something I made when I was in jail in 2016 and couldn’t sleep one night, no pad no pencil just me, my cell and my thoughts. I felt it fit perfectly on the project, I threw it on there and suddenly I had something I was more than proud of.”
“More than anything with this project, I want people to recognize my versatility. I’m still in shock at how this project does literally everything you want out of a project in just 4 tracks and barely 5 minutes. I want people to recognize the artistry as well. The story in “KILL HIM !,” the conversations with my demons in “NIGHTMARE.” This project has something for everyone. Even if you’re one of those people who doesn’t have the brain capacity to appreciate artistry, there’s “YEAH!” Some shit that bangs in the car. If you’re a rager, you got “Kill HIM !” and “LULLABY”. if you appreciate “real hip hop” and lyricism and flows, you got “NIGHTMARE”. I think this project is something everybody can enjoy, which is why I’m so proud of it.”
Although having just released this new project, there’s more coming soon from Samron. “I’m currently putting the finishing touches on my first full length project. Wrapping that up. Gonna start dropping the plethora of singles I’ve made this summer and getting some videos together. I’m gonna drop anywhere between 5 and 8 songs in the month of September, I want to drop a couple videos too and then my full length in October.”
Listen to SCREAMO in it’s entirety below.