Run the Jewels

Run the Jewels 3

I also think it’s better than the first or second installments: slightly more ambitious and slightly more layered.

RTJ3 can safely, accurately, and comprehensively be described as “a third Run The Jewels album.” This is a good thing. The albums are differentiated from each other not by vast stylistic shifts but by highlights—a verse or a punchline or a particularly terse beat, all of which are present here.

The blessing and the curse of Run the Jewels 3 is that it’s still a Run the Jewels album, a promise that every song is good, nothing is bad, and depending on your mood you’ll either bask in the lack of tempo changes, pulchritudinous song structures, and surprising hooks, or you’ll seek out a more colorful record.

RTJ 3 is both a sprinter’s dip and a victory lap – it is neither as sinewy as RTJ 1 nor as effusively vivacious as 2014’s RTJ 2, but still finds itself imbibed with the kind of assured professionalism that is only permitted to those who have previously done enough to be granted a low-pressure outing.

RTJ 3 isn’t the towering, thunderous album that ultimately became RTJ 2, but to consider it a lesser effort would be a fool’s errand. Rather, it’s an impacting, steadfast achievement all its own, and one that will only continue to elevate the duo’s skyrocketing cultural status.

The unlikely MC tag team's incontestable third rages hard over bass-driven beats positively thrumming with vitality.

Run the Jewels returns with their most politically charged effort yet.

RTJ3 is the pair's most focused and mature work to date.

Such complexities not only make RTJ3 the most accomplished chapter in the duo's trilogy of LPs, but will also leave fans eagerly awaiting the next installment in what's proving to be one of hip-hop's most boldly distinctive discographies.

Following RTJ2, this record is even harder, even darker and somehow even angrier.

This album is full of bangers and achieves what so many hip-hop heads, old and new, are longing for: music with a message, loud and clear.

The formula is probably becoming familiar, but its time is now.

Run the Jewels can still detonate rhymes like a Molotov cocktail lobbed into a CVS, but now they're strategizing for the long war ahead.

RTJ3 ultimately mirrors the sentiment of too many movie franchise sequels that make the brand go stale.

For the most part, Run the Jewels 3 is not intent on breaking new ground but rather on cementing the fruitful dynamic between El-P and Killer Mike.

Thankfully there’s enough gold at hand to excuse Run The Jewels for getting a little bit carried away with their own runaway success.

Run the Jewels 3's status as a credible but not quite compelling call to arms serves as a reminder of how difficult hip-hop partnerships are to sustain and how much the genre relies on novelty and innovation.