Finally.

Only Frank Ocean could have people waiting for an album to be officially released, close to two full years since its reveal. Having settled for lo-fi, muddy recordings ripped from an Apple livestream since August of 2016, it did feel, Black Friday vinyl sale or not, that we were destined never to hear Endless in it’s full and fleshed out form.

Until now. Endless, having been dispatched a (large) number of weeks late than expected, has arrived at doorsteps worldwide. So, of course, it was on the Internet in seconds, with a crisp, fresh feel, and (perhaps most relieving of all), a clearly defined tracklist.

Gone are the fairly terrible intro and outro efforts from Wolfgang Tillmans and his “Device Control”, and Endless now truly begins with Ocean’s haunting cover of The Isley Brothers/Aaliyah song (At Your Best) You Are Love, a song that began as a self-released cover on Tumblr way back when in 2015. One of the most vocally powerful performances on Endless, it now is spread with lavish and precise string instrumentation, that drag Ocean’s performance out of the recordings even further.

This ballad-like effort isn’t the only of its kind on Endless. The next to appear in the tracklist, Wither, is my favourite of its type. The skeletal approach used to skirt over the directionless vocals from Frank makes for a gut punch of a track. While it doesn’t have the emotional swell of poignant lyricism that Rushes possesses later on in proceedings, it contains such a naturally depressive feel that makes the words involved near-impossible not to relate to in some way.

What gives Endless a very distinct feel, for better or worse, is the use of many tracks that are particularly and deliberately short. Eleven tracks on the 19 song tracklist don’t even hit the two-minute barrier, and yet undoubtedly some of these songs are the true highlights of the entire project.

Where past and future Frank Ocean projects were interspersed with brief, mostly forgettable interludes, Endless puts a lot of faith in the strength of its short but sweet impacts to fill the 35 minute playtime.

Alabama and Commes Des Garcons are the two best examples of this. The formers simple, repetitive piano loops hit harder on every listen, and to couple with nectar-like vocals from Sampha is just spoiling us. Commes Des Garcons doesn’t even last a minute on the official release, and yet the dramatic/humourous lyrics included by Ocean and the slow burning hum of effortless production in the background make what could have easily been a throwaway track memorable.

Not that Endless doesn’t steer into forgettable territory from time to time. A project with so many unconventional tracks in length is bound to disappoint from time to time, and Hublots has extremely large portions that make the track as a whole feel unnecessary. The tone of the vocals in particular feel completely out of place. I also enjoyed Florida a lot, lot more when it was the outro to Sideways as I originally thought. As a standalone track it loses a lot of its appeal.

Which is strange in a way, as Rushes To (originally part of Rushes, I know, stick with me) on its own is a beautiful choice. A little extra roar here and there have been inserted for its CD release, but at its core this is a beautiful and dreamy piece of production that has the ability to feel like true escapism. It captures the essence of what I think Frank Ocean (and lets be honest, we’re never going to properly find out) was trying to achieve with Endless, and leads fantastically into the albums truest slow-burner, Higgs.

Higgs is a song that feels the most pained to perform across the album, and seems to be the little brother of Seigfried on Blonde, another delicate and ethereal ballad that appears right towards the end of a Frank Ocean album. The quiet power in the vocals lays fantastically well next to a simple and effective piece of guitar work, that feels ripped straight from a live studio session. It is that raw feel that keeps you coming back to Endless again and again.

I’ve always felt the most popular song from Endless (again, can you have a “most popular song” from what is essentially an unreleased album?) was Slide On Me. Maybe it was the added Young Thug feature on Ocean’s Beats 1 radio show, Blonded, but it always had a feeling of prestige involved. Problem for me is, I don’t really care for it. After the slaps of In Here Somewhere, what Slide On Me is is extremely sturdy, perhaps the most typical song on the entire album, but uninspiring. There’s talent at the core, but it doesn’t feel built on enough to give it the status I assume Frank Ocean believes it should have.

Where Endless is a success, is in how distinct the entire project feels. Strip away all the livestream warehouse nonsense, the age for a wait for a listen in true quality, and although they are layers on the mystery of this album, Endless’s music alone makes it truly feel distinct. Blonde may have a significant edge in terms of it’s quality and longevity, but given the straight choice of the two, for a short spurt at the gym or on the way to work, I’d quite often pick Endless to listen to, and often do.

The sharpness of the structure, with so many short tracks to get through, yet a lot of the project feel slow and nuanced is no mean feat, and you can feel the effort that has gone into very simple parts of the production in order to make them stand out. It will never go down as a classic, but Endless deserves your attention, and it deserves it more than once.