LOVE LAST FOREVER

Remember the days when Destroy Lonely's drops felt like certified moments, when his vocals rippled over regal beats and sparkled like stained glass? Now he's dropping undercooked tapes and the Twitter calves are catching him. Among the roster of Playboi Carti's Opium label, the inventive and goofy Ken Carson is increasingly overshadowing him. Worst of all, an ex-girlfriend has it accused of physical assault – an allegation he has denied. At a time when stars are collapsing every week, Lone's fall from grace is particularly steep. His new album does away with the guitar backdrop of last year's over-the-top debut, which caused a tsunami of scorn. It feels like an attempt to reclaim its place as a cult favorite.

LOVE LAST FOREVER it's all fancy beats and sugary vocal sprees. But instead of reviving golden-era Lone, the tape is overloaded with flashy flex-rap tropes, as if SparkNoted himself. No song is awfully awful. Likewise, no verse or hook or vocal track leaves much of an impression. Imagine a feature-less Travis Scott album—it's an airless vault full of the best chatGPT braggadocios can produce and nameless elegant instrumentals that shine like jewels.

The gap is disappointing, because Lone clearly wants to create an immersive world for his music. Its cover is always elegantly designed. He directed a short film for his latest project. He takes on separate personas for new albums, giving himself a pseudonym for each. On If looks could killit was Look Killa. now it's Baby Money. However, that's about as far as his creativity goes – as a branding exercise to make himself seem cool, mysterious and vaguely artistic. It has Swift's drive to self-mythologize, but his narrative misses the mark. There's something almost impressive about the way Lone makes luxury and hedonism sound wistful through repetition. It's a never-ending extravagance—getting high, drinking, flying to LA, breaking out, making millions upon millions. Even the title –LOVE LAST FOREVER—feels pointless, unrelated to 95 percent of the album. There are no lovelorn crowns, no yearning synthetic flutters, no romantic ideas.

The beats, produced almost exclusively by Lil 88, are richly textured yet hollow, like royalty-free trap beats made on a blockbuster budget. Even after a dozen listens, you'll still be pressed to pick one of them out of a row. The few that stick are hypnotic and cosmically restless, like “LUV 4 YA,” which has the icy breeze of experimental bass. It's one of the few that mutates as the track progresses, with drones and keys mirroring the drunken vocals in the bridge. Frosty synth tracks wrack the brain on “LOVE HURTS,” which could soundtrack Lone and Lil Uzi Vert catwalks on Pluto in all-black Rick Owens spacesuits. When Lone brags, “This ain't no way of life, this fair life,” over the crazy underworld merry-go-round of “SAY THAT,” you're almost convinced he's in control of the carnival. But then he cuts the power and goes back to press rates.

When it wants to try, the flow changes quickly and the rare silly bar livens things up. Yet even his most erratic and energetic tonic spasms—the “woo woo” on “SYRUP SIPPIN,” the gruff monster on “HONESTLY”—feel like ripoffs of Carti and Travis' vocal tics. Some of the most exciting new rappers, like che, make up for weak writing with ever-morphing, weirdly zoned beats. This used to be the case for Lone. This time, it looks like he was with Lil 88 in the studio until they lost all perspective. Does love last forever? is a question Lone could soon ask his most loyal fans, whose patience can be tested by an album so simple and insipid.