What makes Old great is its refusal to be one coherent statement. The album is as messy and wild as Danny Brown’s life.

While Old often seems like a hip-hop kaleidoscope exploding across the speakers, it's also crafted and paced, split down the middle like a great LP with a sure start and a freeing finish.

More than ever, Old allows even passive listeners to care about what Brown is saying, to form a bond with him and to trust there is more of interest to him than women and drugs.

In his berserk originality, writerly flair, emotional impact, and old-fashioned craft, Danny Brown belongs in any conversation about the best rappers working, and he's at the top of his game here. 

The popular perception of Danny Brown as a particularly lewd-yet-talented harlequin, one who banters about absurd rap tropes indicative of a healthy respect for the hoary even as he transcends it, fails to take into account his most important asset, the one Old makes abundantly clear; his acute understanding of the environment such bromides are born from.

Old, from its quirky beat selection to its more classic hip-hop moments leaves the listener more than happy but steeped with a sense of jealousy. 

Brown's nu-skool genius is out in force here on his third album. The record's producers take their cues from his truly singular flow – a terse, hectoring blend of squawking cocaine mania and ghoulish, punk gruffness – and respond in kind with an album of unprecedented production styles.

Old is XXX without that fun first half. It isn't traditionally enjoyable, and it isn't supposed to be. But for Danny Brown, the pill-popping, pussy-eating squawk-box, it's the most daring record he could've made.

With Old, Brown has bettered XXX by putting in the same kind of hard graft that has given him the edge on his endless run of tours. It’s an album that feels measured and well timed and yet avoids sounding over-polished or awkwardly stage-managed.