producers: kraz

When you listen to this album, you can tell that KRaZ is doing his music for the love. And it's quite tragic, that the love is not always enough. Meaning that while the joy that went into the album, makes the listening to it also more of an enjoyment than it otherwise would have been. But it can't prevent it from being only half (or less) amazing at times. As there are some obvious short comings, with the most obvious being cheesy keyboard sounds, that can be explained to the means that KRaZ had available when he was recording this album. But if you dig deeper, you will realize that the way the beats are put together, how KRaZ (who produced all the cuts himself) programmed the drum, how he always puts a little melodic tune into his beats, the way that the elements are not looped throughout but know changes and bridges, all of that makes the beats in structure very solid, with just the way the results sound being struggling.

And when take a look at the throughtout cool lyrics of the album, then things are also thought out, as here once more the love that KRaZ is felling for this music, is making him come interested and enjoying himself. What means that we are getting happy and bouncy tracks like "I Want To Go There" (with KRaZ playing the live sax), "The Cry" or "This Nursery Rhyme", with on the last K' kicking something story telling. The bass is what is dominating "A KRaZ Tale (Part 2)", and if the title track "Universal Beauty" or "Escuchame (Listen To Me)" could have been recorded with more live instruments than the sax that KRaZ is playing, the jazzy vibe would have been even nicer. And on "Universal Beauty" KRaZ steps to the mic and flows for the pleasure of it, while on "True Love" we are listening to him coming to some important conclusions about his real emotions and feelings.

Also on the reflective, there's "If It Were True", that further appeals due to the nice shuffling drum, the cool bass, but also because the keyboard sounds have been toned down. Discussing the struggle on "Tell Me", we are listening to someone that is sharing his thoughts with us. "Just One Chance" then gives us the chance to talk about KRaZ' flow, that's quick, fine tuned, and that is not stumbling over its pattern, but is distinctive in a rarely breathing in kind of way. Finally the last bonus cut (okay, there's a hidden track too) is a mere "Introducing The Professor", who is treated to a fast and nice beat, but who sounds like he is very uncomfortable with his own flow.

Now, with already having pointed out what is holding back this diy-effort, the conclusion can not add anything new. Apart from that we are actually curious what KRaZ would do, if he'd have better equipment, maybe studio musicians, and how that would make his efforts sound like.