Though it might not be as thematically harrowing or galvanizing as To Pimp A Butterfly, At.Long.Last.A$AP is another of the year’s anticipated rap sequels that, on the surface, doesn’t give us what we expected or wanted and winds up being all the more impressive for it. Rocky’s music has always been druggy, but where Long.Live.A$AP had a kind of luxe, fashion-world nightclub decadence to it, its successor is frayed and loopy, meandering down all sorts of hallucinogenic rabbitholes. For a minute there, Rocky made the songs for the moment when the night peaks, but he might be even better at the stuff for the ragged comedown, the walks home during a bleary sunrise. –Ryan

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