ye

If anything, ye compresses the Kanye West character, making everything about the artist feel smaller, blurrier, like you are squinting at an image once larger than life.

The Life of Pablo was chaotic, insecure, yet often brilliant. Ye is more chaotic, less secure, with enough sporadic flashes of brilliance to make you hungry for much, much more. It could have been worse.

ye is by no means Kanye West’s finest moment, but it’s a reminder not to count him out just yet.

Despite its sometimes grating protagonist, ye is a pleasant enough way to pass half an hour. Seven tracks is long enough to develop an idea without wearing it out. The production is typically lush. Kanye has returned to the kinds of soul samples that made him famous to begin with.

For all its brevity, ye doesn’t feel slight. Substantially more focused than its predecessor, it packs a lot into 23 minutes. It is bold, risky, infuriating, compelling and a little exhausting: a vivid reflection of its author.

His verses mostly feel redundant, hastily thrown together to validate the presence of these songs on his project, and while the album has been described as introspective this very brief release only allows for skindeep thoughts on any one topic. The Kanye West show has already rolled on, but some of the magic of yesteryear has been left behind.

Ye is an album about Kanye’s state of mind, his family, and a narration of what’s been going on in his “shaky-ass year”. The beats are great. Lyrically, it’s fine. Whatever you think of his politics, his songwriting, sample-hunting and beat-making remain dynamic, surprising and ballsy.

The instrumentals on ye capture the essence of its marquee artist--the contradictions, the abrasive sudden shifts in tone, the blistering flaws and the bounty of positive potential. If West had better delved into his emotional and psychological turmoil in ye's lyrics, instead of getting bogged down with click-baity asides, then this LP would've been a classic.

Although not a masterpiece like My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, ye shares an abbreviated, yet complete look at Kanye, both the highs and the lows.

Nobody can deny this mini album flirts with brilliance, and feels like a pop cultural moment straight out the gate; we just wish there was a little more to it.

Ye can feel uneven, sometimes boring, and more indulgent than usual, but it's a fascinating peek into West's psyche.

Make no mistake, this is difficult to listen to. You will not be rewarded for multiple listens. It is what it is. It’s not enough, by a mile. West has clearly made this for himself first, and indulgence is deeply ingrained into the concept.

Ye‘s emotional claustrophobia is at times effective: As a chronicle of living with mental illness, this is Kanye’s most unsparing work to date. ... But Ye just feels unfinished, as if he wanted to avoid another debacle like the rollout of the also-unfinished The Life of Pablo and turned in a rough draft to make deadline. Unlike Pusha’s Daytona, which is all muscle and sinew, Ye feels like a mix of the weakest moments from The Life of Pablo.

There is nothing new to be learned from this album burdened by crudely formed raps about his already exhaustively covered life and deeply muddled politics. ... Still, the music at times almost makes it worth it.

ye really does what a self-titled album should do: it says “Hey, this is who I am.” Even at 23 minutes, it almost feels like two different albums: an aggressive, dissonant one, and an empathetic, soulful one. Yet, those aren’t the two sides of Kanye, because those things exist in him simultaneously, all the time.