FUTURE Review

The stunt was the story, two albums in consecutive weeks, both at number one, and this one is the version aimed at people who wanted the drugs and the menace. It delivers exactly that with no surprises anywhere. Mask Off is the giant, a flute loop and a slow rolling beat that became one of the most recognisable records of the decade, and it is genuinely excellent.

Draco has real venom. Rent Money and Zoom are dependable. But across seventeen tracks the writing barely moves, the same three or four boasts recycled with different adjectives, and the beats sit at a temperature he had already established two years earlier. There is nothing to dislike and very little to remember. It is a professional exercise by someone who had worked out precisely what his audience wanted and had stopped asking whether he wanted it.