Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight Review

The case against it was always the same one: this is the Rodeo mood again with the lights turned down another notch. Heard now, the lights turned down is the achievement. The record is shorter, darker and far more consistent than the debut, and it opened at number one on the Billboard 200 with 88,000 units, his first album to top the chart.

Goosebumps is the centre of it, a Kendrick Lamar verse bolted to a hook that gets under the skin and stays there, and it has lasted better than almost anything released that year. Pick Up the Phone, with Young Thug and Quavo, has an easy charm the debut never tried for, Through the Late Night gives Kid Cudi the most affecting minute on the album, and Andre 3000 opens the whole thing with a verse that sets the bar high.

The writing has not moved: Scott is still a mood more than a voice, and next to Andre 3000 the gap is plain. But the sound is his, the sequencing works, and the album critics filed between the two that count plays better now than either verdict allowed.