Hi, everyone. Band Stonetano here, the internet's busiest music nerd. It's time for a review of this new Childish Gambino album, Bando Stone and the New World.

Yes, here we have a brand new album from rapper, songwriter, singer, actor, director, producer, Mr. Donald Glover, aka Childish Gambino. This will be his fifth and final album under the Gambino name, as Glover seems to be continuing and revamping his music career but wants to do it under a different moniker, maybe his own name. Either way, he seems to be retiring the somewhat tongue-in-cheek Gambino thing that helped put him on the map in the first place.

This record, important to note, also serves as the soundtrack for an upcoming film of the same name, starring Glover. Not a lot is yet known about the movie outside of a few cast members, and that synopsis-wise, I guess it's a survival film with an apocalyptic setting, and Glover plays a singer of all things in this scenario. There are little tidbits of all of this peppered throughout the album in the intros and outros to these tracks, arriving in the form of these vocal snippets performed by the actors in the film. And while none of this gives a full picture of everything that's going on, all of it more or less confirms what is known so far to be the synopsis.

So while, yes, this is a brand new album from Childish Gambino, it feels like it's operating on a familiar pattern, as this is not the first time Glover has built a record around a narrative for a would be movie or script idea. That was obviously the case for the fan favorite Because the Internet years ago. But obviously at that point in his career, Glover wasn't exactly in the position to make Because the Internet come to life in the way that he is doing with Bando Stone, which is obviously really cool and abstract and ambitious of him as a creative. But it still leads to a similar album experience where it feels like you're getting really a mixed bag of tracks that feel like focused, complete songs than others that are scenes parading as songs. Furthermore, others come across like background music more than anything or come across as somewhat out of place because the full context in which they work or how they serve the narrative of a Bando Stone isn't fully yet known.

So there isn't really a whole lot to do with this record other than, I guess, enjoy each of these tracks in a vacuum because as they currently stand as a listening experience, they don't exactly come together into something greater than the sum of their parts. Still, the intro track, "Hearts Were Meant to Fly", is a pretty epic opener for the record, or at least it tries to be. I think the way Amaarae's vocals are worked into the track is great. The cross-cultural blend of grooves is cool, too. But also, are we just going to sit here and pretend that this is not, at least on some level, just a rip-off of Yeezus era Kanye, like from the bars to the inflection to how distorted it is to the way the guest vocalist is worked in. I just wish Glover wasn't so obvious with it.

Following this, though, we have a big aesthetic and stylistic change-up on the big single from the record, "Lithonia", which has a somewhat sludgy mix to it, but it's still a sad, soaring, impassioned alt rock ballad with some grand piano passages and stellar vocal harmonies, too. This track also narratively for Glover is very much a main character moment. His director's hat is on as he is pretty much telling the point of view of a man who has become just disillusioned. His world is crashing down before him in a way.

Following this, we have "Survive" featuring Chloe, which features some '80s style synthesizers, some vintage drum machine beats, too. It very much feels like an elevated version of something from Glover's recently revamped Atavista Project with some steady, confident, clever bars and flows deeper into the track after the intro, too. A smooth chorus. The entire track is pretty low-key at the end of the day, but it's still pretty sticky melodically and lyrically at moments, too, especially with those shots at whack podcasters.

By track four, it becomes pretty clear that Glover is going to be rounding a lot of musical and stylistic bases on this tracklist, as with "Steps Beach", we get him doing like a sad boy, acoustic, singer-songwriter thing with lots of peculiar chords to it. It's not a vibe or a style that I think is really Glover's strong suit, but he more or less pulls it off. It's listenable. It's just that the progression of it, especially the narrative in the lyrics, is a bit meandering.

Following this, the heat does turn up on the banger "Talk My Shit". But as much as I like this track, I will say I do think the instrumental as well as Flo Milli and Amaarae, again, who appears here, really carry the whole thing. I can still commend this as a great curation moment for Glover. He really brought together a lot of good elements and delivered more or less a decent opening verse.

Then further surprises and switch-ups on the following "Got to Be". I'm actually blown away by this one, and not in the best way. After a lengthy intro, we all of a sudden break into a beat switch that introduces this massive Prodigy sample. Breathe with me. But once it pops in, what Glover does on top of it vocally and everything else is just disappointing and lazy. The core of the appeal is the Prodigy sample itself. He does little to nothing with it. It's a total waste of a clearance.

The song "Real Love" is a bit of love-sick, formulaic pap, but it's obviously very much trying to be that. But somehow, I think Glover forgot to perform it or execute it in a way that came across as satirical or maybe a bit tongue in cheek. It just sounds like the actual thing.

"In the Night" is yet another track on the project where it feels like we're getting elevated out of east of vibes. But once more, I do feel like the production and Jorja Smith and Amaarae are carrying things, and they're really what's keeping the track exciting. Then there's "Yoshinoya", which is this cold-blooded diss-type cut, which many have said includes some bars that are meant to essentially be a shot at Drake. It makes sense, as him and Glover did recently have some friction between them. There are a lot of clever, hilarious, witty bars throughout the track. A very straightforward, confident, clear delivery from Glover. He has most definitely come a long way since the camp era as far as the quality of his bars and just his overall wit and his vocal inflections, too. Whether or not it works as an effective diss or anything like that, I feel like is up for debate, but I will say it still serves as a highlight for the album itself.

Then there's "Can You Feel Me", which is an interesting switch up on the album because I guess it features Glover's son. Yeah, it's this very almost like heartwarming Disney movie track type moment that, sadly, I'm not really crazy about. I think the vocals on it all around are terrible. Yeah, I can't really stand it. I cannot sit through this track. I really can't as much as I try to. But I will say I do like the fact that it seemingly fits into this greater trend that we've been seeing these days of the celebration of fatherhood and parent-child connections within the sphere of hip hop music, especially really through its biggest stars.

With "No Excuses", following this, Glover's over-processed falsetto vocals really do wear on me over time and are also an insult to what little vocal chops he does have. The cinematic production on the track is awesome, though, as the entire thing sounds like this cinematic piece of Afrofunk and soul with killer horns and vibraphones, too. The track "Cruisin'" following this is really a mishmash of a lot of different things. 80s synthesizers, a Young Thug impression, a Yeat feature, an impassioned plea, and an epic instrumental finish. It's very dazzling, it's very over the top, and also very much like I said earlier, it sounds a bit more like a scene than a proper song.

Case in point, the following track, "We Are God", which sounds like Glover is engineering this song, not for how it will appeal when listening to it on its own, but how it might work in the background of something else happening visually. Because on its own, just as a standalone piece, I think it's annoying.

With "Running Around", featuring Foushée, if we are going to do some very bland, straightforward pop rock that sounds like it's meant for the radio, I guess I would rather it be happening this way since it does sound genuinely punchy and crunchy. The vocal harmonies from Glover are pretty sticky as well. Just that Foushée feature on the track is a little bit awkward at points in a way that is honestly unflattering. It could have used another take.

The very final moments of the record, in my view, are a slog as well. Things do not really pick up, especially on the track featuring a Khruangbin, which just sounds like Glover is doing a bit of a background music reggae thing. Then the closer sounds like yet another Yeezus era Kanye ripoff with a pretty terrible children's chorus, too, worked into the mix.

So all in all, while I do think there are some interesting highlights across the tracklist on this record, and I'm most certainly looking forward to the movie it's attached to, I will also further add that I'm open to the idea of maybe seeing that movie and it may be changing my mind on a few of these tracks because it could from there bring some greater context or just acclimate me to the songs in a different way. I mean, yeah, the movie could be great, especially considering that acting and writing and directing is where Glover tends to shine the most.

But as of right now, all we have is the album here, a great deal of which I just don't find to be all that terribly interesting, mostly because I do think there are a lot of tracks here that serve no other purpose other than to be background music for something else. But for the highlights and straightforward tunes that are here, they are great. They're just mixed in with cuts that are just not that, not so much, which is why despite its best efforts, I'm feeling a light to decent five on this one.

Anthony Fantano. Childish Gambino. Forever.