Don't Tap the Glass Review

Nine months after an album that asked hard questions, this one asks none at all. Ten tracks, under thirty minutes, produced start to finish by Tyler, and built on hip house, electro, New Orleans bounce and the kind of synth funk that used to come out of Minneapolis. Big Poe opens on a Busta Rhymes flip with Pharrell shouting across it.

Sugar on My Tongue is the best thing here, a hook you cannot shake loose once it lands. Sucka Free and Mommanem go straight for the four on the floor. Ring Ring Ring rides a bassline that simply does not stop. The stated purpose is dancing, and on that narrow test it works better than almost anything else in his catalog. The writing is where you pay for it.

There is no subject beyond the invitation, the bars are functional at best, and nothing reaches the strangeness of Earfquake or the momentum of Sticky. Reviews were warm and openly graded on the curve a party record earns, with more than one calling it a palate cleanser rather than a statement. That is what it is. Taken as a set of grooves it is a genuine pleasure. Taken as the follow up to Chromakopia it is a shrug with excellent drums.