From its first notes, Evenfall immerses you in a drowsy, dubby, twilight mood, Sam Akpro evoking the emotional space of dusk with uncanny precision. This is music for that hour when the day’s weight has loosened its grip, but night hasn’t yet wrapped itself around you with a sound that blends dub, grime, post-punk, and shoegaze in a way that feels entirely organic. While the mix of influences might seem sprawling on paper, the result is tightly held together by the production prowess and a commitment to cohesive atmosphere, effortlessly bringing together genres that rarely sit at the same table. The guitars shimmer and squeal like something out of Daydream Nation, while the bass grooves somewhere in the hypnotic orbit of Joy Division, but the rhythms and spatial choices feel indebted to the trip-hop wave of the ‘90s (Maxinquaye, Dummy, or Mezzanine). Akpro seems like someone who’s lived on iPod shuffle mode, absorbing grime, jazz, blues, trip-hop, dub, and indie rock until those genres no longer exist in silos.

Akpro’s delivery slips between grime-influenced cadences and honeyed singing with grace, never crossing into full-on rapping. Instead, his verses feel more like low-lit, intimate observations with rhymes, keeping Evenfall feeling poetic. His voice rests inside the music, not on top of it, a perfect match for an album that’s far more about mood than narrative, and more about the emotional resonance of sound than any linear storyline. This is forward-thinking music made from backwards glances, seamless and sincere that’s truthful, musically rich, and beautifully textured.