Ever since the music industry switched from Tuesday to Friday for official music releases, it's given new life to the joy that is the weekend. This past weekend was no different, and as they dodged forecasts of heavy storms, Bay Area Floridians had a new catalog of jams to take with them to the beach.
While this past Friday featured new albums from rappers A$AP Ferg and Florida-native Kodak Black, it's a certain Colorado-based DJ that has our attention.
We are of course speaking of the saxphone-wielding, future funk inspired Griz, who on Friday dropped Good Will Continue (Remixes), a revisit of his 2016 LP similarly named Good Will Prevail.
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While it doesn't appear to be the "new album" Griz announced was in the works last June, some of these reimagined tracks are every bit as good as the originals and feature some notable up-and-coming names from the EDM community.
On the original LP, the first four tracks — "Wicked," Can't Hold Me Down," "My Friends and I" and "I Don't Mind" — are probably the strongest on the record. Nothing has changed here, as Griz' collaborators bring plenty of wubs and trap infusion to the opening of the album.
Dirty Audio assists on the opening track "Wicked," an electronica anthem in its own right. The original, which features bass vocals and soaring saxophone rips, is morphed here into an alarm ringing trap mix. Whereas the original produced an embodiment of Griz' patented jazzy trip hop, this is much more of a turn up track.
The following remix on the album features Boogie T, who recently collaborated with a CL favorite at Okeechobee, and his take on the drum and 808 sputtering "Can't Hold Me Down." Boogie T's affinity for "drumstep" makes this a perfect match. His groove-based dupstep 'wubs' pair nicely at each drop.
Emphasizing the strength of the first four tracks isn't to say the rest of the album isn't strong, too.
Songs like "Good Times Roll" with Big Gigantic (who we're seeing at Imagine Music Festival later next month,) IHF's take on "If There Ever Comes A Day," and Barclay Crenshaw's remix of "Gotta Push On" are some of my other favorites.
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Altogether, the Good Will Continue maintains the music excellence we've come to expect from Griz.
It's not quite what we had hoped for in regards to a brand new album or potential collaboration album with Gramatik (together they perform as Grizmatik), but it still gives a rejuvenating jolt to some of our favorite Griz tracks.
So if you haven't already been bumping this by the pool this weekend, jazz up the office and bring it to your desk come Monday.
Critic's rating — 3/5
Stream/download Good Will Continue here and listen to it below.
This article appears in Aug 17-24, 2017.