Last Day of Summer, Summer Walker's debut mixtape, charmed with its immediacy, spontaneity, and unguarded approach to songwriting. The follow-up, classified as a true album, is more thought-through and sounds more honed -- all ballads and slow jams, driven production-wise by London on Da Track instead of the still-on-board Arsenio Archer -- but there's no confusing it with the work of anyone but the same artist who broke through with "Girls Need Love." Walker remains more than adept enough as a lyricist and vocalist to distinguish herself over bleary trap-styled productions -- not a minor feat in 2019. She does it to best effect on "Me," seductive and threatening at once, just above a whisper: "I would never shoot you, baby/Maybe just wave it around, all in your face." This also features another one of Walker's bare self-recordings, with her anguished voice accompanied only by a guitar with strings struck just enough to serve as a kind of punctuation. Like earlier reputation-making cuts "Session 32," "Just Like Me," and "Riot," "Fun Girl" contains some of her frankest lyrics and rawest emotion: "Love who I want and fuck who I choose to/Don't take no shit and won't be used." The only negative development here is the featured appearances. Smartly chosen but too common, they tend to get in the way.

Over It    
Body    
Playing Games (Extended Version)    
Drunk Dialing...Loot    
Come Thru    
Potential    
Fun Girl    
Tonight    
Me    
Like It    
Just Might    
Stretch You Out    
Off Of You    
Anna Mae    
I'll Kill You    
Nobody Else