It's Almost Dry Review

The structure is the idea. Half of it is Pharrell at his most skeletal, clicks and space and a bassline that arrives late, and half is the soul chopping side, warmer and more cluttered, and hearing the same voice navigate both is genuinely instructive. Neck & Wrist is the best of the first camp, three elements and a Jay-Z verse. Diet Coke is a rhythm made of almost nothing that got played everywhere for a year.

Dreamin of the Past has the biggest sample and the biggest hook. Brambleton is the one with something at stake, a settling of accounts with an old manager delivered without raising his voice once. The only real criticism is repetition of subject. He has been writing about the same trade with the same imagery since the early two thousands and the returns are narrowing, however sharp the individual lines remain. Excellent, and no longer surprising.