As much as I revere his work, AG's solo albums have always been more miss than hit for me, with a few exceptional tracks and a lot of interesting but ultimately not replayable ideas. I'm not done yet, but is the first solo project where basically the whole thing so far sounds like something I'll come back to - I might have to replay the whole thing a few times.

 

Some standouts for me so far have been Luddite Factory Operator and The Weave. The latter feels like something I could leave on repeat for days, like Gold Leaf but much more mellow. Very interested to see what, other than Lucifer of course, the third disc has to offer. Lucifer is of course brilliant and as always showcases why AG and Charli make one of the best pairs in pop music history.

 

It's great to see him continuing to evolve his material in the wake of PC Music's closure - and in this case, I'm a little surprised to say that I don't really agree with people saying it's too long. You could have said that about his previous projects easily, but I keep thinking every song is good enough to warrant a place on the track list, and I'm over halfway through. Still, I guess it's funny to say that when I'm not even done with the thing yet.

I think the pt about it being too long is not so much to do with quality as the ability to focus. If yr being asked to listen to 100 minutes of music, stuff is just going to be left behind because it's v difficult to hold attention for that long and i'm just going to drift onto different stuff. Much like with the Taylor album, where I've straightforwardly refused to listen to the anthology, I can see myself playing the v good disc one on this a lot, two when I get around to it and forgetting that three exists altogether

I'm so obsessed with Lucifer

After sitting with this for a while, I think this is one of my favorite albums of the year. Totally brilliant. Lucifer is a standout and I've had it on repeat for days now - but I think the best track might actually be Luddite Factory Operator. One of the best things I've ever heard from him - a real AG classic.