Swarvy is a producer originally from Philadelphia, but now based in Los Angeles. He’s been putting out various different musical projects for over five years now, such as Bop, his project based on “failure,” which came out last year. His latest effort is an album titled Anti-Anxiety.

Anti-Anxiety might look like a full-length album, but the way it plays out feels more like a mixtape. By mixtape, I don’t mean unofficial album – I mean it plays like a collection of short snippets of different beats, cut and pasted together, with a few guest hopping on here and there to add a little bit of flavor. Now, there’s certainly nothing wrong with that type of project, you just have to enjoy it for what it is, and not worry about what it isn’t. That said, Anti-Anxiety does feel like it comes up just a little bit short. When Swarvy has a project with a clear vision to it, such as on Bop, or the jazz-funk of Scotch, he can really let his personality shine while expanding his sound. On Anti-Anxiety, we get a little window into his version of early ‘80s R&B and hip hop, but nothing is given the space to grow, and the short pieces we are given don’t really add up when you put them all side by side. They don’t sound bad or too disconnected, but they don’t really sound too much in dialogue, either. Most importantly, Swarvy went through the trouble of bringing in guests like Ivan Ave and Jeremiah Jae, only to have their verses kind of buried in the mix and lost in the shuffle as well. It’s especially frustrating, because it feels like there’s a good album in this vain that’s dying to come out, it just hasn’t been given enough water and sunlight to let the sound grow and develop.

Anti-Anxiety isn’t a bad release, but given Swarvy’s previous releases, it’s not up to par with his best work. There are interesting moments here and there, but there’s no key moment that will really grab a hold of you and demand your attention. Hopefully we won’t have to wait too long to see Swarvy bounce back from this one.