Macklemore and Ryan Lewis are back at it again, with their latest release, The Unruly Mess I’ve Made, which is the duo’s second studio album. Including the singles, Downtown, White Privilege II and Kevin, with a possibility for more to come in the future. The album consists of 13 songs. With tons of features including, Ed Sheeran, Chance The Rapper, Mike Slap, Eric Nally, YG, Idris Elba and many more. Macklemore and Ryan Lewis are completely free from any labels, so the album was self released.

The Unruly Mess I’ve Made, has a different feel to it, it’s very unique, he mixes deep story telling, with fun party music. Every song on the album has a different vibe to it. The listener gets the feeling that Macklemore knows he is mainstream, but doesn’t know if he is ready for it, which is interesting to hear. It’s like he has mainstream tracks, which the fan could see them as being mainstream singles, but then he also has songs about his past, way before he was famous.

Kennedy Crane, Sophomore had this to say about the album “Most the tracks on the album are great, but there are some slow songs, which I’m not a big fan of.”

The Unruly Mess I’ve Made is exciting, loud and very entertaining. This doesn’t mean it is flawless, but it is very well constructed. It seems as if he tried to go back to his roots, before Thrift Shop and Can’t Hold Us, to find inspiration for this album. He does have a couple mainstream songs, but it seems he’s focusing on more than humour and catchy lyrics. Macklemore still has a lot of songs that have these, but it seems like he wants to tell more of a story and make his fans feel like everyone is part of the story. If the fans were expecting it to be like his last album The Heist, they might be surprised to listen to it and find out, that he’s not going with the mainstream feel The Heist had.

The album received mixed reviews from critics, receiving an 80 from XXL magazine and a 50 from Boston Globe. It’s scores were much lower than Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’s debut album The Heist. This is most likely because This Unruly Mess I’ve Made didn’t follow the same mainstream pattern that The Heist had. Most of the songs on the album were about being new fame and not selling out, while there were some funny songs as well. The album was a lot deeper than The Heist, which was a more humorous album.

When asked how he felt about the album, Javier Cortez Perez said “I really like it, it’s straight fire, I’ve been listening to it on repeat, since it came out.”

There aren’t too many artists who imitate the same flow as Macklemore, but some artist, the reader might want to check out are Mac Miller, Chance The Rapper and Machine Gun Kelly. They all give off a similar flow, while still being plenty different than Macklemore. Definitely worth taking the time to listen too. If the listener is interesting in more than just the CD, they can see him in concert on June 3rd at the Saltair.