TESTING

A$AP Rocky’s third studio album is a boring directionless mess of sounds and ideas completely missing the mark on captivating and entertaining the listener.

‘Distorted Records’ is a baffling cobbled together intro. Nothing about the song sticks. ‘A$AP Forever Remix’ is such a lifeless track with a bland stagnant instrumental, and boring artistic performances, but a hilariously cheesy Kid Cudi contribution. I love me some FKA Twigs, but she is mistreated on the song, ‘Fukk Sleep’. She barely has an appearance, and can’t save the track from boredom. I fail to understand the hype for ‘Praise Da Lord’, except maybe the beat. ‘Calldrops’ is a snoozefest of nothing. ‘OG Beeper’ and ‘Tony Tone’ are just generic trap songs with annoying instrumental work and unenthusiastic rapping. ‘Guns n Butter’ and ‘Buckshots’ are bland and basic trap cuts, nothing about them stands out. ‘Kids turned out fine’ and ‘Changes’ have terrible tone deaf singing and boringly executed rapping on such flat production. ‘Brotha Man’, ‘Hun43rd’, and ‘Black Tux, White Collar’ are just forgettable tracks, honestly.

A$AP leaves the best song—and the only enjoyable song on the album—for last. ‘Purity’ is a solid track. A little messy in execution, but Frank Ocean kills it, A$AP is vulnerably open about how this lifestyle he chose is getting in the way of what’s important in life, and the dreamy acoustic sound is beautifully hypnotic.

Testing is just a complete misfire from A$AP Rocky.