Symere Bysil Woods, better known to the hip-hop community as Lil Uzi Vert and grew in popularity from the so-called “soundcloud era” of rap, dropped “Eternal Atake 2” after a surprisingly short rollout.
Lil Uzi has various well-known rap albums under his belt, including “Luv is Rage 2,” “Eternal Atake” and “Pink Tape.” Each of these albums have sold over 135,000 units in the first week, as well as some songs going platinum.
With the original “Eternal Atake” having dropped in March of 2020 and selling 288,000 units in the first week, does its follow-up meet the same level of quality as its predecessor?
Fans were caught off guard as Lil Uzi surprise dropped the single “Uzi The Earthling! (TV Show Theme)” on Oct. 23, featuring a 29 sec. retro television intro singing about “a guy named Uzi” and debuting the possible logo for “Eternal Atake 2.”
A couple of days later, the logo reappeared over some of his original album covers, seemingly to promote the new project.
Much of the shine from the original “Eternal Atake” was that the album incorporated a space/alien theme, which was actually implemented into most of the songs.
Transitions in between tracks were little snippets of the lore with things like Lil Uzi being seemingly imprisoned by the aliens and escaping by pressing a button. Additionally, production throughout included a lot of outer-space sound effects that enhanced the immersion.
Being it’s a sequel to such a well-rounded album, expectations for “Eternal Atake 2” were high. The story may have taken an interesting turn if Lil Uzi had kept going with what he had started.
Hearing the album for the first time since its release on Nov. 1, it unfortunately does not expand on what was once set up in the original project. “Eternal Atake 2” carries a lot of what feels like throwaways or even filler tracks from 2020.
The first track, “We Good,” is a solid opener with a lot of energy put into the chorus, especially with that first “WHOA!” yelled in the beginning. Although a short track, and not to the level that “Baby Pluto” was on in “Eternal Atake,” it was entertaining enough to give me the impression that the rest of the project would still be pretty solid.
“Light Year (Practice)” was another solid track, and it really gave off a lot of the 2020 era Lil Uzi.
He really changes up his style of delivery on “Meteor Man” and “Paars In The Mars,” giving us a deeper, weirder voice than what audiences used to. There’s nothing really special about these tracks, as many of the ad libs and especially the chorus cause it to sound unorganized.
For example, the chorus on “Paars In The Mars” is “I sip wock, wock, wock, wock, wock, wock, wock, wock” (wock referring to a cough-syrup-based drink inclusive of codeine and promethazine).
The following track, titled “The Rush,” is the only track on the album with a featured artist, in which the band Big Time Rush is only featured as an audio clip in the intro for the track.
The rest of the song is just Lil Uzi seemingly playing with random voice effects and pitch throughout his lines. At this point in the project, with many tracks sounding all over the place, Lil Uzi Vert has mentioned nitrous oxide multiple times throughout. Many fans expressed concern and disappointment theorizing that he might have been using the drug as he was creating the album.
Although many songs in the middle of “Eternal Atake 2” do contain good production, they don’t carry the same weight or depth as it did compared to its predecessor. It is still clear that Lil Uzi put no effort including transitions or a story, only a vocal line saying “EA 2” or “Eternal Atake.”
The final five songs may be the only consistently good run of the album. “Chill Bae” does have a hint of Lil Uzi being experimental like he did in his 2023 mixtape “Pink Tape” as many of the songs strayed from his normal style of hip-hop song.
A producer on those songs, Cashmere Cat, coincidentally only appears on those last five, possibly hinting that the final tracks were the only ones initially planned to appear in the album.
“PerkySex” is probably the most resemblance of the original “Eternal Atake,” incorporating a dreamy instrumental and an occasional choir dropped into the chorus. What really boosts the song in likeability is the laser sound effects and angelic outro.
While the last half of the project is admirable, and it does contain some elements of the original “Eternal Atake,” Lil Uzi Vert’s “Eternal Atake 2” doesn’t have enough solid tracks mixed in to really hype up fans for what’s to come of Uzi in the future.
It would’ve been nice to see what would have come of Lil Uzi’s out-of-this-world, but it may have worked better to leave “Eternal Atake” as a standalone project.
