Local Review: CLUB MUNGO — GRASSHOPPER

CLUB MUNGO
GRASSHOPPER
CLUB MUNGO RECORDS
Street: 12.29.2025
CLUB MUNGO = BROCKHAMPTON + Dominic Fike + Frank Ocean

It’s hard to be humble when you’re trying to make it in the music industry, especially as a rap collective from Utah, where you’ve certainly got a mountain in front of you and a lot to prove. Nonetheless, the local hip-hop and alternative R&B group CLUB MUNGO seem to lean into humility on their sophomore album, GRASSHOPPER. With its smooth, glossy production, melodically rapped verses and velvety R&B hooks, the album oozes a heart-on-the-sleeve sentimentality.

The intrinsic humility contained in GRASSHOPPER doesn’t mean the group doesn’t know who they are. Their recent single “NAME AND ADDRESS WITHHELD,” which came out in September but doesn’t appear on the album, showcases the group’s capacity for endearingly abrasive, “self-assured posturing.” It’s a single that aligns more with the hubristic entrance of their debut album, 2022’s LODESTAR, which, if anything, only really sought to establish them as a new force on the scene. Including “NAME AND ADDRESS WITHHELD” on GRASSHOPPER would’ve disrupted the flow state that CLUB MUNGO clearly reached when making the album, which itself goes in a very different, more subtly poised direction.

GRASSHOPPER is highly introspective, whereas past releases were more meant to show off their rapping acumen and self-destined skyward mobility. With GRASSHOPPER, they take a page out of the books of Juice WRLD and Frank Ocean by veering into emo rap and soft, soulful, pop-like R&B that’s past the point of needing to be overly confident. Instead, it provides intimate snapshots of the group as they grapple with working hard to make it while seemingly still not achieving the notoriety they pine for, all while experiencing the arcs of love, loss, acceptance and redemption that we all go through as human beings outside of our work. All this public but internal searching not only means the group knows who they are, it shows that they’re willing to share themselves with the world in whatever state we find them in at the time.

CLUB MUNGO is currently composed of five artists: Bradley Cinema, Devin Summer, Grandpa Sweats, Meech and Neds. Each of them rides the same wavelength together on GRASSHOPPER. It’s an incredibly hard feat to achieve, syncing up the cadences and given styles and influences of five unique individuals. Just look at BROCKHAMPTON, the iconic late-2010’s boy band/rap collective, who were at the height of their fame when internal issues caused them to disband completely in 2022. BROCKHAMPTON is the most apt comparison I or anyone at SLUG can or ever has made to CLUB MUNGO, namely in the way their different voices come together and feed off of each other by syncing up flows, thoughts and energy, but dare I say CLUB MUNGO has more staying power than BROCKHAMPTON ever had. Maybe that’s because they haven’t been infected by the industry yet, or perhaps it’s due to the honesty on display on GRASSHOPPER, an album that proves they’re capable of becoming something greater than the sum of their parts.

From the very first track, “Go Ahead,” each rapper brings a piece of themselves to bear in the suffused light of the early winter. “I can sit and reminisce about the time spent,” sings Devin, “Stuck inside a life that’s hard to digest, when / Walls are caving in beside my bed.” Later in the same verse, he says, “I hope you can take me for who I am now,” then shouts but doesn’t break, “I’ve changed, by god, we’ve changed / That’s great.” Grandpa Sweats’ chorus iterates that this change isn’t a loss or step back: “Don’t look back / You can’t return to that / No words to say / Forward.”

Most of GRASSHOPPER is deeply nostalgic — for a past we’ll never get back, for a future we may never reach, for an endless summer that lives inside our heads. It might be that they thought we listeners needed a little summer amidst the socially and culturally bleakest, most inconsistent winter to-date. Their beats use a lot of strummed acoustic progressions which evoke this relaxed mind state, like on “Post 2 Feel,” and “Thinking of You,” complemented by light but rhythmic drumlines that remind me of Dominic Fike’s modern and crafty hip-hop stylings. There’s also glinting piano pieces on tracks like “Honey Pearl” and several of their outros and bridges. The production, credited to Meech and Grandpa Sweats, is varied enough that things don’t get repetitive, and they maintain a cohesiveness of sound by easing each track into the next with measured grace.

Part of the uncertainty CLUB MUNGO conveys in almost every verse on the album comes from all-too-real vacillations between romance and heartbreak. “Thinking of You” and the soon-to-be crowd favorite “Closer,” which features vocals from Detzany, another local artist, are touching dedications to loves present and past, but tracks like “Off White” and “Crop” show the difficulty in balancing their burgeoning career with real life things like the personal commitment that love requires. One of the group’s most consistent forces for levity throughout the struggle, however, is Bradley Cinema, as he cracks wise in verses like on “Check Please,” where he raps, “Panicking gradually ‘cuz my anatomy / Telling me lies that I’ll never live happily, well / I need a bag / I need a Benjamin Franklin stash / I need some ass / I need a booty that’s up to the task / I need my bitch in the crib with a cat.”

The emotions involved with growing older in an unsure state are all encapsulated in “Grasshopper,” the second-to-last track and easily the most well-rounded on the album. This is a song that makes you feel what they feel — the vulnerability, the honesty, the earnest belief in themselves despite the struggle communicated in the longing acoustic chord progression, which lends it a pop-punk aesthetic, along with Neds’ singing chorus. Grandpa Sweats’ third verse and Meech’s fourth have some of the most astute and rhythmically appealing rapping on the album, but it’s three of Devin’s first-verse lines that stand out: “Soundtracking memories whenever I play songs / I guess it’s all the same by the time the winters over / I’ll be ready for you to come to me, red rover.”

I couldn’t help but feel that this album is hope for summer in a winter where none of us are sure of anything anymore. The only way to make it is to ride the waves together, being simultaneously ourselves and something greater than the sum of our parts. —Kyle Forbush

Read more local album reviews in SLUG:
Local Review: Dre Rage Tv — Disconnected
Local Review: Dysregulation — Self-Titled