Oxnard

A slightly longer review, expressing my thoughts on this album more in depth and my reasons on the score I gave.

Before hopping into this project, I truly wanted to love this. I was a huge fan of Anderson's collaboration with Bruno Mars last year and I really liked Malibu. From what I had heard about it, it felt like this record was his own 'To Pimp A Butterfly'.
It gives that vibe, as well, with the grand opening on the opening track, 'The Chase', which is a beautiful track, surely one of his best. The flute and the vocals from Kadhja Bonet are what I can only describe as blissful. With this track he sets up the themes and the style of the album, so I had no reason to doubt that the rest of it was going to be great as well.
The second track, 'Headlow', is underwhelming to me, a low-key track after such a grand intro didn't feel so appropriate, fortunately the project picks up the pace with the third track, 'Tints' featuring Kendrick Lamar. This actually felt like a finished song, with a good hook and great verses from both Kendrick and .Paak.
From this point on, though, we enter a portion of the record where my main issues with it being to emerge. I absolutely love the sound and the style he was going for on this record, but the execution of it is not on point as it should be.
The project's greatest issues are it's faulty hooks and the length of the tracks from here on out, so it's hard for me to pick a song to consider a "highlight".
I think that the project actually picks up the pace only with a few tracks, such as 'Who R U?', 'Brother's Keeper' featuring Pusha T and 'Sweet Chick' featuring BJ The Chicago Kid, and that's about it.
The rest of the tracklist is filled with half-baked ideas or poorly executed ideas followed by weak hooks, and the whole project ends anticlimactically with the song 'Left To Right'. In contrast with the stunning opener 'The Chase', to say that this finale is disappointing would be an enormous understatement, and this left a sour taste in my mouth when walking away from this project, which is definitely something that did not occur with Malibu's 'The Dreamer'.

Overall, this project started off so strong but was ultimately brought to a weak conclusion. I liked a few tracks here and there, but the middle part of the record was truly patience-testing for me.

✨ Highlights - The Chase, Tints, Who R U?, Brother's Keeper, Sweet Chick
🔇 Least Favourites - Left To Right