The songs here are far more intricately constructed than anything on the band’s debut, and the musicianship is disciplined almost to a fault; a little unbridled rocking out would actually have injected some needed verve into Color’s quieter second half.
With no clear bangers on the landscape, Late feels more like the platonic ideal of a Drake album: a woozy, wordy stream-of-consciousness whose stylistic shifts are subtle on a molecular level.
Lamar operates in the same boldly visionary idiom as the Purple One, expanding the boundaries of the hip-hop empire and daring other aspirants to the throne—yes, even Kanye, even Jay—to play catch-up.
The Welsh chanteuse’s first two records were rooted in clubby dance-pop, but on her latest, she tosses off the dubstep like cheap cubic zirconia. The change highlights her brightest facet—that limber voice, which swings from voluptuous alto to fluttering soprano in one swoop.