Wasteland Review

The production team, with Jordan Ware and Dpat among others, gives him a palette that no peer had at the time: liquid basslines, chopped vocal samples, drums that arrive from odd angles, and long stretches with no percussion at all. Dead Man Walking is properly hypnotic. Gravity, with Tyler, the Creator, is the most complete song here. Price of Fame and Wasting Time show what he can do when the arrangement gets busy.

All Mine remains his most played track and it earns that. The narrative interludes are the risk and they mostly work, mapping an argument that runs across the record. Where it falls down is voice, in both senses: the writing stays at the level of a man cataloguing his own indifference, and after an hour that flatness stops reading as cool and starts reading as limited. Superb craft, real ambition, and a central character who never grows.