3xLP YELLOW VINYL

Faces followed Watching Movies with the Sound Off in just under a year. Considerably deeper and darker than the preceding album, it's classified as a mixtape -- originally a free download, revised and released by Warner digitally and on vinyl -- but certainly has the artistic and emotional impact of a proper LP. Within the sequence are some of Mac Miller's casually boastful and potent rhymes. More often, however, it shows the rapper examining his fragile state, reckoning with mortality, frankly despondent yet still able to construct ingenious cadences with lines like "I'm the only suicidal motherf*cker with a smile on." Miller relates his ascendancy and self-destruction in measured verging on meandering style, occasionally allowing the likes of Thundercat, ID Labs, Earl Sweatshirt, and 9th Wonder to either assist or spell him on production. The beats, energized and bleary only when Miller's self-praise and most addled moments call for it, tend to sound crafted for the sake of alleviating anxiety.

A1        Inside Outside
A2        Here We Go
A3        Friends
A4        Angel Dust
A5        Malibu
B1        What Do You Do
B2        It Just Doesn't Matter
B3        Therapy
B4        Polo Jeans
B5        Happy Birthday
C1        Wedding
C2        Funeral
C3        Diablo
C4        Ave Maria
C5        55
D1        San Francisco
D2        Colors and Shapes
D3        Insomniak
D4        Uber
E1        Rain
E2        Apparition
E3        Thumbalina
E4        New Faces v2
E5        Grand Finale
F1        Yeah