Punk Review

The intention is legible and the execution is not. He wanted a stripped album about loss, so most of it is acoustic guitar, soft keys and a vocal pushed forward in the mix, and when the writing rises to that setting it is genuinely affecting. Die Slow is the best of it. Stupid Bitch is a proper song with a real melody. Recognize Real has a lovely restraint.

The other seventeen tracks are the problem, half formed loops with one hook idea repeated until the runtime is satisfied, and a guest list so long that the intimacy the concept requires never survives more than two songs at a time. Calling it Punk invites a comparison it cannot support and sets an expectation of rawness that the glossy mixing contradicts. It is the sound of an artist with total freedom and nobody willing to tell him when a song is not done.