Not being a fully paid-up member of the Frank Ocean fan club, the protracted promotional build-up surrounding Blond/Blonde – the plethora of postponements, the pop-up shops, the magazine, the “visual album” Endless, the leaked roster of guests – failed to excite in me a lather of anticipation; and frankly, the album itself bears out my relative disinterest.

Less structured and song-oriented than Channel Orange, it’s a long, meandering ramble through Ocean’s passing interests and attitudes, hopes and memories, alighted upon like scenes briefly glimpsed from a train window and then dropped into tracks that aren’t so much sung as delivered in an undulating sprechstimme that seems to be avoiding the difficult choice of a compelling melody.

Consequently, one track bleeds languidly into another, as if we’re listening to a long, stoned stream-of-consciousness largely comprised of memories of childhood and romantic liaisons, establishing Ocean’s development as a bisexual outsider. As he acknowledges over the trickling bubblebath of electric piano in “Seigfried” [sic], “I couldn’t gauge your fears, I can’t relate to my peers”.

Virtually the only time the album comes to life is when OutKast’s Andre 3000 bursts through the torpid meniscus to deliver a brief but animated rap on the minute-long “Solo (Reprise)”. Elsewhere, guests are half-hidden, whether it’s Beyonce cooing wordlessly on “Pink + White”, Jonny Greenwood’s guitar scarifying a deconstructed take on “Close To You”, or the various backroom contributions of Pharrell, Tyler The Creator, Jamie xx and James Blake – although the latter’s aesthetic fingerprints are all over the album’s glitchy, miasmic R&B style.

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“Nikes” opens the album with Ocean delivering some of Blond/Blonde’s most affecting lines – “I may be younger, but I’ll look after you/I’m not in love, but I’ll make love to you” – in a heavily autotuned vocal that makes a cartoon of the emotions; thereafter, the album drifts between flanged, shoegazey guitar figures and noodling keyboard textures with little sense of overt purpose or engagement.