Drake – ICEMAN

What leads an artist to release three full-length records—two of them previously unannounced—on the same day? A cynic could suggest it’s the kind of move a battered and bruised megastar might make after emerging from a very humiliating, very public feud on the losing side.

Listening to ICEMAN, probably the best of his three new releases, a more generous explanation—a creative renaissance, perhaps?—seems highly unlikely. Drake sounds very much like an artist thirteen years removed from his critical peak. Dubious numbers aside, the 39-year-old rapper is undoubtedly a streaming behemoth, but it feels increasingly unclear who he is writing for these days. He has become the Coldplay of rap—a strikingly bland hit-maker who no longer makes memorable hits.

ICEMAN generally sounds slick, in its own soulless way, but there are few surprises sonically. Nauseating trap, overplayed AutoTune—all of Drake’s favourite signatures are present and correct. The problem is the rapper himself. Drake sounds lethargic and uninspired throughout ICEMAN, perhaps a consequence of spreading his moderate talent too thinly over the three new records.

On “Dust,” a tedious ode to his success, he supplies his rivals with some of the juiciest low-hanging fruit imaginable, boasting that “Girls from Atlanta call me Santa.” An odd flex for anyone, but inexplicable from the target of “Not Like Us.” Elsewhere, it’s more of the same. He mocks his perceived rivals on “Shabang” (“Last one you dropped was shit/I did press play on that ho/Mid, mid, mid, skip, skip”) and makes light of the perception he is a spent force on “Janice STFU” (“Ayy, buried alive, somеone come dig me up”), but for all his bravado, it’s impossible to shake the feeling that Drake is trying way too hard to convince us all.

The very antithesis of cool, ICEMAN is the equivalent of a glass of tepid water on a hot day. This is what irrelevance sounds like.

ICEMAN is out now via OVO/Republic.