7220 Review

This is the record where the elements line up. The beats are the best he has been given, patient and dark with real bass underneath, and he uses the whole range of the voice across them, from the strained melodic hooks to a flatter conversational register that suits the heavier subjects. Ahhh Ha is the one everybody talked about, a direct shot in an ongoing dispute delivered with genuine venom, and it is thrilling in a way that is worth being slightly uncomfortable about.

Broadway Girls is the pop swerve and it works better than it has any right to. Petty Too and Grow Up are solid. What holds it just below excellent is length and repetition, seventeen tracks that cover four subjects. But it is coherent, it has real emotional stakes, and it is the album that finally justified the decade of buildup.