EUROPEAN IMPORT

Breaking pact with his usual two-year hiatus just nine months after 2024's militant CHROMAKOPIA, Tyler, The Creator looks to keep the momentum going well into 2025 with his ninth LP, the concise DON'T TAP THE GLASS. The mission, laid out on bold opener “Big Poe,” is simple: ten tracks, 28 minutes, "body movement," and "none of that deep sh*t." It’s the execution that proves a little more confusing.

With the rigid conceptual focus of projects like IGOR out of the picture, you'd hope that Tyler would play faster and looser here, using the project to test drive some of the ideas that don't fit into his regimented album cycles. Conversely, DTTG feels like one of the safest entries in his catalog. The Odd Future alumni's signature toolkit forms the bulk of the sounds here: his heart-raiser, scattershot drums skeleton "Stop Playing with Me" and "Big Poe," his color-splatter synths warble across "Don’t You Worry Baby" and "Ring Ring Ring," and his stable of vocal inflections season the boasts of "Sucka Free" and pines of "Tell Me What It Is." It’s historically a winning formula, but alongside spats of underproduction ("Stop Playing with Me," "Don’t Tap That Glass") and a sparse lyrical mantra partly summed up as "I’m better than you," things begin to feel a little overplayed.

As expected from a project with a Slick Rick-style dookie chain on its cover, DTTG consciously lifts from '80s rap soundscapes, and Tyler meets them with deftness; standout "Sucka Free" oozes with laid-back charm, West Cost vocoders weaving amid his scratchy Californian verses. A constantly stated attempt to make things dancier proves less successful. Though "Ring Ring Ring" dolphin-nods its way into a "911"-style groove, the drums here often lean way too rowdy to fill a floor; second track "Sugar on My Tongue" is a particularly gangly affair, its hi-hats tripping over one another on its race through the chorus. A late-album lean into his producer side sees him concoct some impressive soundscapes, though wandering vocals from YEBBA and Madison McFerrin never quite land control of them.

It’s good to see Tyler having some real fun with it, but for a 28-minute project that should be all killer no filler, DON'T TAP THE GLASS warrants more bite.

Big Poe    3:02
Sugar On My Tongue    2:33
Sucka Free    2:41
Mommanem    1:15
Stop Playing With Me    2:13
Ring Ring Ring    3:21
Don't Tap That Glass / Tweakin'    3:42
Don't You Worry Baby    2:58
I'll Take Care Of You    3:20
Tell Me What It Is    3:22