The cultural context in which Macklemore briefly became one of the most derided musicians on the planet has, in some sense, dissipated. In 2014, the Seattle native, born Ben Haggerty, caught hell when The Heist—his goofy, modest, hit-laden album with Ryan Lewis—was awarded a Grammy over Kendrick Lamar’s good kid, m.A.A.d. city. In response, Macklemore sat down, had himself a think or three, and emerged in early 2016 with a painfully labored sequel. This Unruly Mess I Made succeeded in earnestly engaging with criticism that Macklemore and Lewis had profited from white privilege while utterly failing to show that they deserved the attention they’d received. It was a bad album made in good faith when people still had room to care. But does anyone have the energy to be angry at Haggerty anymore?

On his new album, Gemini, Macklemore feels like he’s shrunk back down to an appropriate size. The record is not wondrous, but it’s a light listen with a couple of good moments and a handful of clunkers. The weaker moments reveal his shortcomings as a rapper without being provocative or ponderous enough to provoke a firebomb, or even a raspberry, in response.

Gemini is Haggerty’s first solo album in 12 years and his first without Lewis since the two met in 2006; the duo announced an amicable split in June. Macklemore has been careful to praise the relationship in interviews, but he’s also suggested that his partner placed significant pressure on him. (“Ryan is so good at [...] bringing out the best in people,” he told Rolling Stone. “It can be daunting a little bit when someone’s constantly like, ‘Nope, rewrite it. Nope, rewrite it, rewrite it.’”) With Lewis gone, Gemini’s sound falls to an old collaborator, the producer Budo, along with Tyler Dopps, the young engineer and producer who helped source samples for This Unruly Mess.

Budo and Dopps have left Macklemore’s sound more-or-less unchanged, if a bit less cloying, with plenty of tinkling piano keys and bland, stadium-sized choruses. The record is faux-inspirational in the front and faux-churchy in the back with some mild, relatable songs stacked up in the middle. Those include “Intentions” and “Good Old Days,” the first about failing to make good on intentions (“I wanna be faithful/But love hooking up with randos”) and the second, which features Kesha, about the good old days.

Relatable, platitudinous songs like these, which mistake honesty for profundity, are Macklemore’s bread and butter. They’ve allowed him to retain a dedicated fan base as his mainstream appeal has waned. Listening to Gemini, it struck me that one of the things that must draw fans to Macklemore is the simple intelligibility of his lyrics. Rap has only gotten more cryptic since the emergence of Young Thug, Lil Uzi, and their Soundcloud imitators. Macklemore, on the other hand, enunciates so clearly that he could be calling bingo at a local retirement home. Fittingly, on “Glorious,” he imagines getting props for his bars all the way from heaven, sent not by a departed rap legend but by his late grandma.

Lines like that one combine Macklemore’s self-seriousness (“I am a terrific rapper”) with his goofier side (“Even my grandmother thinks so”). He has trouble sticking consistently to either approach. On the Lil Yachty-featuring “Marmalade,” there’s a particularly confusing sequence where he talks shit to a hater for being on Tinder, only to pivot: “And if I was single/I’d be right there with ya/But I’m committed, keep my dick in my britches.”

Macklemore is a generous collaborator, extending a hand to plenty of unknowns and gamely imitating the flows of established artists including Yachty and Offset on “Willy Wonka.” (Listening to Offset rattle off the reasons why Willy Wonka is a sensible role model is one of the fleeting pleasures of this record). The romantic “Zara” includes a sweet tribute to 1990s R&B and is elevated by Abir, a Moroccan-born singer with a powerful voice; when asked what she was most excited for fans to learn about her in a recent interview, she responded, “That I exist!”

There are some other standout songs: the block-party special “Levitate” and “Corner Store,” which is enjoyable despite being a thunderingly obvious “Thrift Shop” redux, lacking only the latter’s catchy hook. There’s also plenty to ignore—like “Firebreather,” in which Macklemore dabbles in rawk with the help of fellow Seattleite Reignwolf. The album’s closer “Excavate” is outrageously maudlin with an overwrought falsetto from the Washington singer Saint Claire. But it’s obviously sincere and even touching at times. The hip-hop world has moved on to fresh abominations—to YouTubers who cannot even pretend to be making music in good faith, to viral successes apparently intent on repeating the errors of Macklemore and Iggy Azalea anew. Gemini, meanwhile, is an album full of schlock that no one is asking us to pay attention to, and it signals that Macklemore wants, and deserves, to be left in peace.