“Once upon a time

That’s the moral of the story”

Excess is the game here, as Wayne grips onto his gold for as long as he can before his life runs out, which sounds like it’ll be any minute. “Dreams” is a goofy brag but implies that nothing can stay. And the track’s breakdown into a ramshackle R&B swell (“I had a dream I was a foooool”), left after a series of frantic changes, captures it perfectly. Wayne is restless. For the most part, his presence on a track is a series of imprint flows, one remarkable mouthful after another. Precise without being robotic. With its short tracks, the colors shift constantly, and even when a concept or sound is just sort of there rather than complete and alive (I can’t describe “Get Outta My Head” in any more detail than “it’s like XXXTentacion’s edgier aesthetics concentrated”), Wayne offers some pocket of experimentation that’s at least interesting (his first verse on the aforementioned track is ugly, popping with dark cartoon imagery). In other words, the listening experience never drops straight down. The “Funerals” and “Mahoganys” and “Hardens” of the album are the sort of obvious masterpieces, but in the treasure room (dapples of rubies, diamonds and gold), all trinkets coexist.