VIEWS

The middle section boast a tougher, truculent edge reminiscent of last year's mixtape If You're Reading This It's Too Late. But it's during the final sequence that everything clicks. [#361, p.114]

Views should be a slog. But remarkably, his signature brand of downbeat introspection remains gripping.

It's a slow album, but through multiple listens, we're treated to the same complexities, but personal and musical, that have made him such a fascinating figure throughout the past decade.

["Redemption" is] just one of the many deeply beautiful tracks here that further dismantles whatever barrier was left between rap and R&B following Drake’s earlier albums.

The album highlights everything we have come to love about Drake but in too much excess. Clocking in at just under an hour-and-a-half and spread across 20 different songs, Views renders itself too long.

Views, made up of twenty polyrhythmic and eclectically curated tracks, is Toronto's ethos and identity in sonic form, an inside joke between Aubrey Graham and the city he's championed since the start.

Ultimately nothing here really out-pops last year’s dulcet hit, Hotline Bling, included as a bonus track. As ever, though, the detail--both lyrical and producerly--is pin-sharp.

Views isn’t a perfect album--some judicious pruning of the less impactful tracks would make it more easily digestible, and there are certainly moments when you start to wish Drake would cast his gaze a little further afield than his own navel--but nothing about it suggests that position is anything other than unassailable for the foreseeable future.

Drake still remains a master at producing low-key mesmerizing rap, but the Views are slightly less breathtaking here.

Given all the resources he has, the album may have been too big to fail, but he’s still maintained enough of his unique talent that it’s unlikely anyone could have done it better.

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who listen for lyrics, and those who listen for beats. If you belong to the latter group, then Views will be one of the best albums released this year. If you’re in the former, well...

Drake is still skilled enough to carry off this pose with the effortlessness needed to make it credible, freighted as Views may be with cheeseball lines and repetitive refrains. These soft points have always been part of the charm, however, and while the album is overlong and presents nothing truly explosive or exhilarating, it generally works as a steady low-key collection of modish, contemplative mood music.

At 20 tracks, it edges into bloat--and takes longer to ingratiate itself, although time spent in its company (ideally in a car, after dusk) reveals moments of careful craftsmanship and ingenuity.

Overall, Views contains Drake’s most straightforward lyrics, and his emotional excavations aren’t as striking as they were a few years ago, when they had the sting of the new to them.

Spanning an obnoxious 82 minutes, the record goes through several musical and thematic phases, but the overall atmosphere is bitter, petty, worn-down. It confuses loyalty and stagnation, wallowing in a sound that is starting to show its limits.