Bryson Tiller’s Solace & The Vices released in the fall of 2025 is a double album that feels like a late-night confession split between redemption and recklessness.
The Solace side leans into depressive R&B grooves and raw vulnerability, painting love’s quiet erosions—jealousy, betrayal, and the exhausting dance of devotion amid doubt. The Vices, by contrast, shifts to rap-heavy bangers featuring BossMan Dlow, Rick Ross, Plies, T-Pain, and others, channeling party-fueled bravado and streetwise flexes that sometimes overshadow the emotional core.
Themes of relational strife and self-doubt ripple through, with the duality of Solace and Vices mirroring the push-pull of seeking peace while indulging flaws. Tiller broadens heartbreak beyond romance to fractured friendships and career-weary reflections, though it occasionally drifts into formulaic territory, where strong singles buoy weaker filler.
On the Solace side, ‘No Contest’ kicks off with a sly fusion of R&B silk and drill’s gritty pulse, Tiller issuing a fade-to-black apology for past infidelities with the collateral of his vices, turning a potential throwaway flex into a mirror for anyone toxic who’s whispered “sorry” while plotting the next slip.
‘Uncertainty’ is the album’s weary core, a stripped-bare ballad unfolding like an unsent late-night voicemail. Finger snaps punctuate a minimal beat as Tiller unravels the suffocating fog of a bond eroded by one-sided doubts—his partner’s lingering feelings for an ex casting long, insecure nights. It paints screaming matches, cheating, and emotional exhaustion with stark vulnerability, hitting like a gut punch. It’s the emotional apex, a sad exhale mirroring those moments when love’s security unravels, leaving you questioning every “I love you.”
Tiller’s voice carries a quiet intensity over beats that feel intimate and grounded.
“Damn.” Bryson Tiller just spoke. Somebody make sure his emotional support animal is being fed because this boy is sick if he thinks he’s going to get away with being a cuck after his debut single went 15x Platinum and Diamond certified.
New falsetto from Bryson Tiller on ‘Star Signs.’
Embracing the mess of maturity without sanitizing it, the Solace side outshines the feature-heavy Vices, delivering soul-baring R&B that cements Tiller’s lane. It’s imperfect—some tracks meander, resolutions evade—but in a year of polished pop and rage anthems, that’s the point.
Tiller’s return to roots is a hand extended through the dark: grab it, and you’ll find solace in the vices we share this generation.
/5.8\
OBK CHANNEL 
Leave a comment