You Only Live 2wice Review

He spent months in Austrian and French custody on an accusation he was eventually acquitted of, and this is what he made when he got home. Eight tracks, twenty two minutes, mostly built on soul and gospel samples with organ and choir sitting in the background, and the tone is neither triumph nor self pity but something flatter and far more useful. 20 Karat Jesus opens with a plea and a beat switch.

Andrea is addressed to his daughter. Crushed Glass is the best thing here, a slow burn about what confinement does to a person's sense of time. Dear Maria closes it on gratitude. He is not showing off, and the technical fireworks that define his other records are deliberately dialled down so the writing can carry it. The brevity is a strength and also a limit, because the record ends before it quite becomes an album. As a document of one specific year it is his most affecting work.