HVN: You better believe 'Heaven Can't Save You' but it sure sounds nice-nice
The time to shine brighter than ever is now for HVN in 2023. The hip-hop artist is keeping all eyes on his non-stop grind courtesy of the newly released Heaven Can’t Save You studio release and needless to say? It slaps.
HVN delivers with his new ‘Heaven Can’t Save You’ album
With the replay value sky-high, it’s safe to say the newest audio offering from the Texas native is start to finish solid. No over the top guest features, just pure audio flames on the 15-track release.
Today, multi-talented Houston rapper HVN (pronounced “heaven”) pulls back the curtain on HEAVEN CAN’T SAVE YOU, his intimate new album. It includes the critically acclaimed singles "MESSY" and "BOOTED" as well as more than a dozen new tracks. Throughout HEAVEN CAN’T SAVE YOU, HVN flexes the sort of vocal, thematic, and even spiritual elasticity that makes him not only one of the most magnetic artists in music today—but one of the most nuanced. On “LOW LIFE” he slinks through delightfully off-kilter drums, while on songs like “PRODUCT OF SINS” or “SEX, MEDS, MUDD” he seems to sink into the heavy low end as if it was quicksand.
Above all else, HEAVEN CAN’T SAVE YOU is a record about finding both the beauty and the pain in the muck and grime of everyday life, here represented by the bass, distortion, and sophisticated arrangements. Produced and mixed mostly by Broadday and Anthony Kilhoffer, a frequent collaborator of Travis Scott, Kanye West, Jay Z, and Kid Cudi, the album also cuts close to the bone in terms of personal writing.
“They don’t know the pain I’m going through,” he reveals on the shimmering “SCREWED UP.” “Mixing the drugs missing the love, missing the love mixing the drugs” as if he can’t tell anymore what the difference would be in prioritizing one over the other. HEAVEN CAN’T SAVE YOU also features “MESSY,” HVN’s hypnotic comeback single from this April. “MESSY” was HVN’s first release since ALL GIRLS GO TO HEAVEN, his acclaimed EP from 2021.
That eight-song set showcased his versatility, from the yearning “4AM” to the poise of “HELLSCAT,” the electronic buzz of “HISNEYLAND” to the patient swing of “SOUTH.” At first, music was an afterthought. But when he began writing and recording in earnest, he was similarly all-in, tapping his veins to write some of the most incisive, evocative songs of his generation, earning co-signs from the likes of Don Toliver, Omar Apollo, Kevin Abstract, and the late Virgil Abloh. While he’s been absent for a minute, it sounds as if the rest of the industry has yet to catch up to HVN’s last round of sonic innovations.
