I've been following Yelawolf since I heard his excellent Trunk Muzik mixtape. He's one of the best up and coming rappers, equally unique and just straight up good at flowing. So of course we're expecting more from his Shady Records debut.
The sound quality has improved on Radioactive, you hear that from the atmospheric intro. 3 tracks in though and you realize there are no real dirty south bangers, which is the kinda thing he works best with. Rather, there's a tonne of variety pitching Yelawolf to the mainstream.
If you don't care for his street music, pick this album up. Yela's grown as a rapper and even though I hated some of the songs on here, he puts his heart into every track and if I isolate his verses I'm always impressed. The quality is mixed though, and I ended up stopping the album half way through. Then again, I'm a fan of his street stuff so I'm biased.
5 stars for Yelawolf's mic presence- he can doubletime, switch styles mid-sentence, and tell stories like the greats. 1 star for Radioactive- it's mixed, average, and really disappointing. Props for signing to Shady, but I'm gonna stick to his mixtapes.