I wasn't exactly underwhelmed by this record on first listen. That couldn't be the case when Ultra Light Beam hit me like a freight train on first listen. Damn that's a beautiful song, it's honestly as good an opener as Gimme Shelter. And if he's really comparing himself to St. Paul then it works incredibly well as an opener. If that's the road to Damascus moment, then I like how unsure of his faith he is on everything that follows. Can one experience really change your life? I feel like he spends the rest of the record questioning the affirmations he makes on the opener for the rest of the record. Which is not only a great way to structure a record but a wonderfully human response to an encounter with the divine. But after living with this record for some time, it's begun to seem like a cohesive whole to me. Yes every song sounds different to everything else on the record. But that's a great thing, especially because I feel that every song on this record segues perfectly into the next. To the point where I can't listen to these songs out of context other than in the batches they form when broken up by the intermissions, which at first I deemed unnecessary.

My only problem is that Kanye's not very funny this time around. Every lyric on Dark Fantasy was precision drilled, potent, affecting and hilarious. Yeezus was more improvisational, but for any other rapper, even with an army of ghost writers, Kanye's batting average on that record must have been alarming. But where are the punch lines on pablo? Where are the 'caught with 30 rocks, the cop look like Alec Baldwin's? Shit where are the 'black girl sipping white wine/put my fist in her like a civil rights sign's? I laughed at the Victoria's Secret line on 30 hours but that was largely out of duty/ relief to see a recognisable joke