There's a hilarious Photoshopped image of Future posed with all of the Lakers' Larry O'Brien trophies, and it underlines a point: Greatness is often measured by how consistently it is delivered, and until he releases something genuinely bad, every album, EP, mixtape, or loose track Nayvadius Cash releases is just another morsel in his current all-timer run. When this run ends, we can look back and sort out what was transcendent, what only seemed good, and what kinda sucked. EVOL, his surprise album, arrives less than a month after his surprise mixtape* Purple Reign,* and while it has slightly more misses than hits, the highs are high—arguably higher than Purple Reign's—and ultimately, the lows don't matter. The 1995-96 Bulls are one of the three best teams of all time, but that doesn't make the 1998 Bulls' championship mean less than the other five.

Purple Reign went to some dark places, but something about its brevity, and the finality of its closing duo of solemn tracks, felt like an attempt at turning the page, finding a new way forward. Future had seen the dark wood, and now he was sorting it out. EVOL stalls at this fork. It's billed as something of a minor release (in the same way What a Time to Be Alive was minor but they still wanted your money for it), but it's still an "official" one, meaning Future swings for a few radio hits here. They feel more obligatory than outright bad: Of the big brash odes to decadence Future has been doing post-Honest, "Lil Haiti Baby" is the keeper, with a punishing low end recalling the extreme maximalism Lex Luger perfected in 2011. Future stretches his voice to the breaking point, and while it's often been the thing carrying his pathos, here he's screaming "I just wanna go back to the Bentley store" like an addict who's totally fallen off the path.

The album boasts some of Future's more interesting beats since 56 Nights or "I Serve the Base," particularly "Photo Copied," which pops and boops like "Beez in the Trap"'s cousin, and the sing-song patter of "Xanny Family" which uses an ultra-repetitive hook to mesmerizing effect. "Low Life" has the sultriness of House of Balloons/*Thursday-*era Weeknd, when Abel still seemed like a mysterious, hedonistic force, and Future's by-the-numbers bars reinforce the feeling that it is, in fact, a Weeknd track featuring Future. It ends up an album highlight.

"Lie to Me," arguably the album's best song, scrapes the maximal, spacey landscape Future's so skillfully explored before, and it's the moment where Future communicates most clearly what's behind his tremendous output—it's not the breakup, it's not the decadence, it's not the success, it's the combination of all three. He sounds paranoid, protective, and manipulative, flatly admitting "I got way, way too many issues." As Future stretches this championship run as far as he can, we can wonder: How good can he get? How much longer can this last? When does this become numbing? The answers remain to be seen, but two months into 2016, two minor-yet-good releases don't show a sign of slowing down.