The final track of this album finds the thematic mode it is searching for. Lamar is good at tackling expectation, his albums have an arc in concert with it. This can be wider cultural and social expectation or it can be personal. This time, it’s personal.

A multi year absence for an artist seen as epochal is always notable. Especially as the times they supposedly spoke to, and defined, continue without them. The things that early albums tackled, the events or feelings put into words that ... read more

In the midst of a musical desert in the Bowie discography comes this explosion of creativity. The album is birthed from abstract musical workshops and a fascination with Twin Peaks. Fascinatingly, the track I’m Deranged would appear in Lost Highway — which Lynch always claimed was in the world of Twin Peaks (and Bowie would then be in Twin Peaks).

This concept album of small town American murder is elliptically told to the point of abstraction. The narrative hops perspectives and ... read more