Wolf

He just keeps getting better at writhing around in this narrow space of homage and usually lands somewhere just between endearing and brilliant. [May 2013, p.67]

Wolf’s production features a more textured and subtle sound than we’ve ever heard before.

At times, there's the sense Tyler's charisma outweighs his content, and as such it's probably up to Earl to deliver the group's first bona fide hip-hop classic.

Whether he does fast angry raps like "Domo23" or revealing personal songs like "Lone," his music is never not fascinating.

It may not have the global appeal of his OF stable mate’s Channel Orange, but it is certainly his most accessible and enjoyable.

We already knew he was a talented composer and producer, but Wolf suggests he now may just be the finished article.

There’s a lot more diversity in the sound of the album, and it’s there that Wolf immediately shines.

With Wolf, Tyler, the Creator is exciting again: maybe not as the ringleader of the Odd Future empire, but as a producer who just turned 22.

If you’ve made your peace with his artistry, the rewards are considerable.

Using Wolf as a platform to let his imagination run wild while remaining accessible, Tyler, the Creator displays maturation on his own twisted terms.

While Tyler will almost certainly never outgrow life as a weird, hell-raising provocateur, Wolf shows that he's already growing into life as a smart, diverse artist.

Wolf's mix of retro soul, moody synths and backwards beats doesn't add up to his masterpiece, but the fan-stalker narrative "Colossus/The Bridge of Love" is his own "Stan".

At its best, Wolf manages to make the inroads toward accessibility that Goblin wouldn’t and pulls it off without sacrificing too much of Tyler’s refreshing capriciousness.

Tyler's Wolf may lack in editing and aural oomph, but it more than compensates with wit, if you can get past the way he seems to revel in tossing off invectives and then doubling back to defend them.

It's complex, conflicted, and bipolar. Paranoid, even. Most of all, it reveals the harmless and empathetic character behind Tyler, the Creator's complicated persona.

Wolf is Tyler's album through and through, a mostly diverting document of juvenile delinquency that defines him better than any prior musical effort.

The emphasis on reacting to criticism and persona-maintenance occasionally overshadows the significant developments and leaps Tyler has made as a producer and musician on this record.

This album is so enjoyable on a musical level that my qualms with Tyler as a personality are essentially nullified, but I’m not sure that will ring true for most others.

It's a fun album for fanatics, but the willingness to shock feels too comfortable at this point, so those who found it tiresome before will likely find it devastating here.

This is no walk in the park, it has to be said, but Wolf is going to be remembered as the record that sees Tyler deploying his tact as an astute beat-maker and a producer more than allowing his reputation as a Satan-worshiping neo-fascist to swell any further. Musically, it’s a step in the right direction.

Tyler is his own worst enemy, of course. But the buoyancy of the production and the overall intrigue of hearing him struggle with his idle hands prevent the album from getting mired down in too much vanity.

Wolf is still packed with signs of potential, and at this point it would be just as foolish to write Tyler off as it would be to call him one of the best in the game.

Tyler rages at his absent father, scowls through uncomfortable fan encounters and--true to form--spews tons of supposedly ironic sexism and homophobia. If you can get past that tic, there's plenty to admire on Wolf.

While Wolf definitely feels like progress on some fronts, it's also a resolutely conservative effort, marred by a neurotic sense of self-involvement that recalls Eminem at his worst.

After three albums of unfiltered angst, the one-time wildcard now seems like a stubbornly static figure, an impression that’s supported by his monochromatic self-production on all of Wolf’s 18 tracks, which rarely build on the synthesized strings and tranquilized pianos of his other releases.

Unfortunately, Wolf fails in the very same manner as Goblin, albeit with slightly more class.

So much of Wolf is about distancing Tyler from the listener, whereas the vulnerability and melodic mirroring of "Answer," awash in sad organ glissando and two decades of unmet emotional need, is the album's truly shocking moment, in large part because it's so much better than everything else. From there it's another eight problematic songs until a pulse returns during Earl Sweatshirt's guest verse on "Rusty."

Wolf's disengaged haunted-house funk plods joylessly through empty rage and squirmy homophobia. [12 Apr 2013, p.72]

He seems bent on making a career out of his adolescent emotional turmoil, resulting in a thematically stagnant, myopic and ultimately immature record.