Music Reviews

After 2019’s IGOR, which still stands as my favorite Tyler, the Creator album and personally one of my favorite concept albums any artist ever, my expectation for this new album over here were sky high. Now were my expectations surpassed? In a sense yes – Call Me If You Get Lost is a beautiful amulgamation of all the past Tyler, the Creator releases into one gorgeous abrasive mess.

There is something for everyone on this album, if you’re either talking about the raging bangers that are „LUMBERJACK“ and „JUGGERNAUT“, more introspective cuts such as „WILLSHIRE“ and „MASSA“ or just good vibes that the songs „WUSYANAME“ and „SWEET/I THOUGHT YOU WANTED TO DANCE“ provide. And somehow, Tyler and his right hand on this album DJ Drama manage to make sense out of all this into one cohesive experience. To kind of take it track by track here the album opens up with the dreamy „SIR BAUDELAIRE“, which honestly feels like a damn sunrise – it sets the tone for the rest of the album and just works excelent as an opener. It also transitions smoothly into the next track „CORSO“, which is one of my favorite bangers on here, it’s got a little bit of everything, heavy trademark Tyler, the Creator bass, with blissful keys and memorable melodies, the track throws you into the album head-on. The next song „LEMONHEAD“ featuring 42 Dugg I have mixed feeling on – the song in it’s core is great, the tune is there, it’s abrasive as hell, feels like a killing machine robot marching towards me, also the tuba slaps. This track’s biggest weakness though has to be the feature, 42 Dugg sounds like ass on here, I’m sorry, he just does. The outro here is nice though an fades smoothly into „WUSYANAME“ and wow, this track is honestly just pure bliss, this is music for my ears. Tyler does great here and I was honestly a bit sceptical about Youngboy NBA coming on here but shoot me in the head if this isn’t his best performance on any song PERIOD. The first teaser track to this record „LUMBERJACK“ once again revives the streak of bangers on this album and so far it’s honestly 3 to 3. The song is really good, it sounds a little demo-ish, but that is clearly what Tyler and the gang were going for, so it works as an atristic choice. The following track „HOT WIND BLOWS“ is another amazing track, but I gotta say, the real highlight of this song is the Lil Wayne feature, the dude hasn’t sounded this confident and in his zone in a long time, really shows how Tyler bring the best out of each and every one of his features. „MASSA“, the next song, is one of the many songs on here that baits the listener into thinking it’s gonna be one thing, but then just out of nowhere a beat switch comes in and is something completely different – this and later on in the tracklist the song „JUGGERNAUT“ are the prime examples of this. The song sees Tyler going more personal about his life, really going in at like the last minute of the song, where Tyler pours his heart out about just about everything that’s been bothering him in the past few years. Now the song „RUNITUP“ is by no means a bad song, just a little boring for my taste – I personally see it as more of a transition point in the album, essentially splitting the album into two halves. Right after this comes the song „MANIFESTO“ and oh my god, what a banger this track is, without a competition one of the best beats Tyler has every been on, really makes me wish he would do more often experimental stuff like this. The sample is top-notch, the rapping is on point, overall just one of the best songs on the album, everything just clicks for me with this one. Now the song after this „SWEET/I THOUGH YOU WANTED TO DANCE“ is a really intresting one ranging at almost 10 raw minutes and somehow never gets boring throughout – the song is a blissful two-parter, first half feeling like an IGOR leftover and the second half going into more Reggae style, both halves complimenting each other quite well, it’s just heaven to the ears, especially the latter half. Now I’ll be the first to admit that sometimes, when I don’t feel like listening to the whole 10 minutes I tend to skip this song the most, not because it’s bad or anything, but just beacuse it can be very long-winded and kind of ruin the momentum of the album for me. What then follows is one interlude track „MOMMA TALK“, where, you guest it, Tyler’s momma gives a few words, then comes the track „RISE!“ which has a really beautiful chorus and a nice performance from Tyler, but that’s really about it and then another interlude in the form of „BLESSED“, where Tyler talks about how people don’t appriciate what they have. Now after this exhausting 4 songs run comes the song „JUGGERNAUT“ and holy mother of god, somebody call the fire department, beacuse this song is absolutely fire. Like seriously, Tyler, the Creator on a song with Lil Uzi Vert and Pharrell Williams, what’s not to like? The feature list on this one honestly speaks for itself, they all do extraordinarily well on the song and it’s just all and all a fantastic display of talent. The second to last track „WILLSHIRE“ sees Tyler going in a Kendrick Lamar Sing About Me, I’m Dying Of Thirst type fashion and it wokrs wonders. My biggest complaint about this song is that it just has this weirdly mixed drum in the right ear channel when listening to the song on headphones, not sure what’s up with that, but besides that, the song is really impressive. Last but not least the closer „SAFARI“ ties the whole travelling theme of the album together in a somewhat satisfactory way, but the song on it’s own isn’t anything ground-breaking, it does what it’s supposed to do.

One major criticism that I guess I have with this album is that it doesn’t feel nearly as cohesive as IGOR or Flower Boy did – it’s kind of a big mess, but nonetheless a beautiful one at that. Still a huge accomplishment for Tyler and I can’t wait to see what he does next.

Light 9/10