FUTURE

If he continues to focus in making projects of this caliber and lacing his beats with plenty of Kill Bill sirens, it may not be a stretch to start putting Future Hendrix in the GOAT category.

His latest work will be more than enough to keep his name ringing in the streets, but not enough to have him be immortalized as an urban legend. Not yet, at least.

FUTURE is a fine mix of the stylings of past Futures layered in a rich blend of sounds from a now refined sonic palette. It doesn’t communicate the same intense and complicated emotional concoction that fills his songs when he’s at his most vulnerable and compelling. But it doesn’t have to.

Although Future's typical predilection for sex, drugs, and crime still rules, the inspired production on Future at least makes for an interesting listen.

FUTURE falls below the mark. What’s important, however, is that Future seems to acknowledge change and reinvention, even if this record doesn’t achieve either.

After a year of baited breathing, we seem to have arrived at an in-between. There's still plenty of fun to be had in the waiting room, but let's hope he has more in store for the next appointment.

Although the 17-track, hour-long affair lasts way too long, Future sounds fully engaged.

As a body of work, this album is neither an elevation over nor an advancement of his stream of recent material.

At the end of the day ... Future is not a terrible album ... But its advancements over its predecessors are too marginal, and its differences too detrimental, for it to feel like the major work it’s meant to be.

Two good albums, then--but more editing could have produced a single excellent one.

A sixty-two minute exploration of territory that’s already been covered. With some judicious cutting, a quarter of this album could have been left behind.

Future’s problem is that, like his cohort Drake, he’s drunk on his own myth, and unlike Drake, his (intentionally) limited skill set doesn’t have any obvious backdoors to sneak out of for his career’s third act.

Future washes, rinses, and repeats on a new set of merely passable tracks.

On his new self-titled album Future loses sight of qualities that made his last run at the top a memorable one.