Back in stock: Hip Hop/R&B

Review: A decade after making his major label with Doris, all all-star affair featuring contributions from the RZA, Frank Ocean and Tyler The Creator, Los Angeles MC Earl Sweatshirt delivers album number six - a two-way hoedown with acclaimed beat-maker, Cypress Hill affiliate and fellow LA resident The Alchemist. It's a musical marriage with great potential, all told, as Earl Sweatshirt delivers distinctively enigmatic lyrical flows in his distinctive timbre over impeccable beats that draw on an impressively diverse range of samples. Compare and contrast, for example, the sparse, bluesy brilliance of 'Vin Skully' and the West Coast synth-funk influenced smoothness of 'Heat Check', or gospel-influenced Vince Staples hook-up 'Mancula' and the slow-motion drowsiness and aural beauty of 'Sirius Blac'.