It would be hard, even futile, to try to capture the genre within which Glass Animals operates. A Google search of the four-member British group will show pages attempting to categorize them as psychedelic pop, indie electronic and alternative R&B, among other things. While I cannot vouch that one of these offers a better descriptor than another, you get the idea: their sound is some sort of crossbreed.
"Tokyo Drifting" - the group's first song in three years since their second album, How To Be A Human Being - is as much of an amorphous beast as their previous work. It definitely hovers around the territory of electronic hip hop. It calls to mind the triumphant tectonic shifts of Yeezus, if they were blended with all the advancements of trap that followed. In a press release, Glass Animals' frontman, Dave Waley detailed his alter-ego that comes out to play on this track. "The first thing Denzel said to me about the track was “this is fire.” Then he said, “Is this you flexin’?” and I said - “Yeh...it is...sort of. It’s an ironic internal flex - me as a narrator describing/taking the piss out of an extreme alter ego version of myself; a version of me that can do things that I’m uncomfortable doing. Wavey Davey is my fucked-up Sasha Fierce; he’s a geezer, a street fighter, he can dance, he parties hard, he’s spontaneous. He can take hits and be told he is shit and not care because he’s confident. He can fight everything the world throws at him.”
Denzel Curry is the perfect person to have been called in to participate in this chaos. He has never shied away from travelling outside of his comfort zone. His recent collaboration with Slowthai, "Psycho", proved that can thrive in dark contexts, and "Tokyo Drifitng" showcases that same skill.
This is not the first time that Glass Animals has enlisted a hip hop artist on one of their tracks. Joey Bada$$ featured on "Lose Control" back in 2015.
