Georgia, USA trio Migos have been riding a wave of popularity throughout the past several year’s thanks to their club-friendly, trap-flavoured brand of hip-hop, and if you’re unfamiliar with their name, you’ll most likely recognise singles such as ‘Versace’, or the more recent ‘Bad And Boujee’. The latter track is a feverishly catchy trap anthem that has become a viral phenomenon and even earned them praise from Donald Glover at this year’s Golden Globes.

Alongside 21 Savage, Kodak Black, Gucci Mane, Young Thug and Future, Migos are among the scene’s most popular young acts, and their latest album Culture is one of January’s most hotly anticipated hip-hop releases, with the hype surrounding it seeming to only have been fuelled by months of delays, label drama and social media speculation.

Comprised of rappers Quavo, Offset and Takeoff, Migos’ sophomore effort boasts collaborations with the likes of Travis Scott, Gucci Mane, Lil Uzi Vert and 2 Chainz, with the popular Metro Boomin and Zaytoven handling the majority of production. But after all the hype and braggadocious music videos, have the collective delivered the game-changing album that they’ve been promising?

The title-track is the first of 13 songs, and opens with a hilariously enthusiastic shout-out from the king of Snapchat; DJ Khaled. “This the intro, for all the fuck boys who ever doubted the Migos! You played yourself!” he yells, in his typical brash style that verges on parody (but that is somehow endearing), before Migos launch into an onslaught of boastful bars. Their aim is clearly to seize the attention of all those who hear it, and in this instance they certainly succeed in doing so.

As the album moves on, Migos dish out more of the same aggressive trap jams, with each verse revolving around the usual topics of drugs, violence, rap prowess, sex, money, the streets, and their rise to fame. Cuts such as ‘T-Shirt’, ‘Call Casting’ and ‘Slippery’ are the most successful at marrying these themes with head-bobbing beats that fans will revel in, but it’s the sinister ‘Bad And Boujee’ that unsurprisingly stands out as the most compelling and infectious of all, combining all of their best assets into five unbeatable minutes.

However, Culture soon begins to grow stylistically and lyrically repetitive, and lacks enough variation and inventiveness to justify its one-hour runtime, and those who aren’t hardcore fans of the group are likely to become bored. So while Migos occasionally show moments of greatness, and certainly have no lack of confidence and ambition, their constant boast about being the unbeatable kings of the rap game rarely seems to be borne out with substance. (4/10) (Woody Delaney)

Listen to Culture here via Spotify, and tell us what you think below!