The Fall-Off Review

The structure is the reason this works. Two visits home a decade apart, the younger man on one half and the older one on the other, and the gap between them is the album's whole argument. Cole has always written about distance from where he started, and giving that a shape stops it from being the same song again. The stretch about the feud, which is what everyone arrived for, turns out to be the least interesting thing here and he seems to know it.

The reception was mixed and the complaints are real: twenty four songs is more than the idea needs, and the middle of the second half restates points the first half already made. What the cooler reviews undersell is how good the writing gets when he stops managing his legacy, and this is the owner's A rather than the critics'.

The production is the axis that holds it back and it is graded accordingly. Cole's beats have always been the weakest part of a Cole record, competent and grey, and a double album gives that failing two hours to make its case. The words carry it anyway.