2xLP BLACK VINYL

Wasteland begins with R&B margin walkers Brent Faiyaz and Jorja Smith informally discussing the etymology of "toxic," and with Faiyaz essentially positing that "honest" is a more accurate description of his songs. A cyclical musical backdrop and warped treatment of the subjects' voices puts a surreal twist on the discourse. Faiyaz further blurs the line between reality and escapism by filling almost a quarter of his hour-long second album with this chatter, skits consisting of fraught interactions with a lover, and an additional interlude that escalate and culminate in the penultimate track, in which a possible suicide and high-speed car crash transpire. While Wasteland plays out like a melodrama that undercuts Faiyaz' reasoning for not writing traditional loverman R&B -- "shit that's romantic, or sweet," as he puts it -- the high quality of its majority shows that the singer/songwriter is at a new creative peak. Whether these songs are unfiltered "real" creations or the result of Faiyaz growing into a persona, they're penetrating all the same, and some of the most artful R&B songs of their time. On first pass, sleeper hit "Dead Man Walking" (released almost two years before the album) starts like light interlude material but uncoils as a stamping, swirling reflection on submitting to temptation -- with Faiyaz somehow projecting an air of triumph. In terms of situation, rhythm, and personality, the self-produced "All Mine," his eeriest and freakiest song yet, meets three definitions of creep. Even more creative is "Jackie Brown," a candied and elegantly smudged ballad in which Faiyaz duets with a feminized version of himself (hardly a first, but it's astonishingly discreet). The featured-artist power moves, such as a highly energized Drake ap