Hi, everyone. Freethony Lunchtano here, the internet's busiest music nerd, and it's time for a review of this new album from Freddie Gibbs and The Alchemist, Alfredo 2.

Here we have a brand new album from Gary, IN rapper extraordinaire, Mr. Freddie Gibbs, teaming up with veteran rap producer, The Alchemist. Now, Freddie is a prolific spitter known for his gritty, coke-dusted lyricism, slick flows, and also great taste in production, which is why he has a history of working with some of the most well-respected rap producers of all time, guys like Mad Lib – who he's made projects with such as Piñata and Bandana.

This one right here is a sequel to a record he did with The Alchemist back in 2020, Alfredo. Among Freddie and also The Alchemist's fan base, this record has gone down as one of their more celebrated projects, not just together, but individually. So the idea that there would be demand for a follow-up is not surprising at all.

So yeah, they have teamed up again, and I'm happy to report that they've really gone in this time with 14 tracks and 47 minutes of material, as well as a handful of features from the likes of JID, as well as Larry June, and Anderson .Paak, and I think for the most part, this record is pretty much everything a fan of either artist would want from them at this point. We have tasteful entrancing jazz and soul loops wrapped in mysterious amounts of reverb and sci-fi synthesizers that sound like they're coming out of the '60s, many of which are underscored by very simple groovy beats. Occasionally, no beats at all, as the whole drumless and abstract thing is still very popular as of late – thanks very much in part to The Alchemist.

And these sounds, these ideas, these elements,are embodied pretty immediately in this tracklist on songs like "Mar-a-Lago", which features a lot of smoky atmosphere, strange tones, chimes, smooth guitar leads as well, and a very simple steady beat, which is a pretty bold contrast to Freddie Gibbs's effortless charisma and over-the-top flexes that are occasionally a little grim, like on lines such as, "Shit, I'm lying, ain't given no passes up / Fuck around, throw a grenade and blow your casket up." Also: "Dudes be writing checks with their mouth / But one day they got us to cash it, call them out / And once the shit bounce, then I'm pissing on their ashes." While the song doesn't have a super strong hook to speak of, it does feature some impenetrably dark vibes.

The record, I would say, has a gradual progression to it, too. Between this song and 1995, this LP really does take its sweet time warming up. But things do get stickier and nastier the moment we move into "Lemon Pepper Steppers", where Freddie's tight Southern triplet flows are perfectly complemented with some ghostly effects and creepy harp runs. You have murderous standout bars like, "I just knocked off his socks / 100 shots came right back at us / Same day, nothing drop / Send your shooter back to you shot." With, of course, a bit of levity in there to boot with this mention of a girl sucking him off after church in these "lemon pepper steppers."

Moving on from there, we have another highlight on the record with "Ensalada", which is just a play on words as there's a lot of lines on the track that start off with the phrase "It's a lotta." Of course, the Anderson .Paak feature that I mentioned earlier that's on this track is stellar, as the soul and charisma coming off of his voice is just off charts per usual.

However, an issue for me in this tracklist is as we dig deeper into it, there are a lot of cuts that to my ears are just maybe a bit too spacey and low-key, like "Empanadas", for example. While I do like some of the standout bars in reference to Freddie's ongoing beef with Benny the Butcher, for example, the energy doesn't really match quite how low-key and dreamy the instrumental here is. For sure, I'm not against some low-key production in concept, especially in the case of Freddie Gibbs, whose flows and delivery just seems to slice through that stuff. But personally, I just don't really think the washed-out rhythm guitars and muddy keys in the mix here are all that interesting. I mean, they're more nondescript than anything.

I think the droning tones and bright synth harmonies on "Skinny Suge II" are a lot more gripping and draw more attention to Freddie's voice, especially as he's going over these various threats to his existence and him overcoming all of them and just being thankful for being able to make it through.

Following this, though, we do have an appearance from Larry June on the song "Feeling", and there's just such a wide contrast in energy and intensity between him and Freddie to the point where the moment Larry June enters chat on this track, as it were, the energy just drops off.

I was pretty interested in "I Still Love H.E.R." the moment I saw it in the tracklist, because I do really appreciate a good Common callback, as clearly it's a nod to the classic song "I Used to Love H.E.R.", but even though this track isn't quite the homage that I was hoping it would be, I do love the plinky keys in the mix. I do like the classic groove of the beat. Freddie does have some biting bars, calling out his opposition as nincompoops, bragging about learning Japanese, a very funny reference to Dr. Umar, of all people, too. And generally, the song sees him expressing a lot of love coming from him, still at this point, for various women in his life, as well as just the rap game.

"Gas Station Sushi" stuck out to me as well as just being a very good general all around character portrait of where Freddie is at currently. Talking about drug dealing, but despite the fact that his life has changed over the years, never having really scaled down. Swearing to us that he may be gangbanging by the time he's 100, that he might quit rap all together, too. Depending on what bar you're looking at, Freddie may come across as self-effacing, braggadocious, or maybe a little bit like he's having an existential crisis.

Now, going into the back end of the album, despite Frederick talking about being very low or no drama, he does manage to work in some shots at Curren$y, as he clearly, to this day, doesn't seem happy about there not being the potential for a follow-up to the Fetty project they made together years ago. And on "Lavish Habits", he goes as far as to say that he wants to squeeze DJ Akademiks's titties and essentially tells Gunna to fuck off, too. Which if you're at all familiar with the Freddie Gibbs lore, you know where that beef is coming from.

Now, in the last leg of this record, I got to say, the real explosive moment, the real fireworks has to be "Gold Feet" featuring JID. Not only does he absolutely smash it on his feature of this record, but for the first half of the track, Freddie really does seem to set a strong tone in terms of flow and lyricism, too. There's clearly a sense of competition, steel sharpening steel here. I love how whenever JID appears on a track or brings in a feature, everyone's on their best rap behavior. It really does say something about his abilities and his reputation that he inspires that energy out of anybody he's collaborating with, whether it's Freddie, whether it's Eminem.

So yeah, one of the best and most mind-blowing tracks on the album, hands down for sure. But beyond that, I feel like this record doesn't really end all that strong. And even when Freddie is delivering some memorable or funny bars, like "She don't fuck with Geminis / Now all these hoes is Astrologist, a janky bitch / I wish that ass and titties came with a Doctorate." Yeah, even during those moments, I just feel like so many songs on this thing blend together due to the lack of interesting or inspiring loops that the alchemist is packing into these cuts, many of which, after 14 tracks, really just begin to blend together in this bland soup of sounds where, honestly, too many of the beats on this thing sound samey.

That further extends out to the songs themselves, given that, I mean, while Freddie, I think, did bring some strong verses and bars and flows to this project, he wasn't really that deep into his hook bag, nor was he super focused a lot of the time on these tracks to the point where you could pull a lot of these songs out individually and say, Oh, he goes into this concept or this theme or this direction or really digs down into this idea or this story or this whatever on this given track. Then he does or addresses something entirely different on this other track.

With the substance of a lot of the songs on this record mixing together, along with many of the beats not really being that distinct from one another, this does create an overall album experience that becomes difficult to stay engaged with the entire time.

So yeah, with that being said, I liked this project. I enjoyed it. It's by no means bad, but I most definitely feel like it could have used a little bit more of focus. The songs most definitely could have had more individual characteristics embedded into them, which is why I'm feeling a decent to strong 7 on this project.

Anthony Fantano, Freddie Gibbs, The Alchemist. Forever.