By: Nick Duffy

Artists are constantly looking for a muse to push their art to a space they haven’t yet explored. On Mac Miller’s previous album, The Divine Feminine, the Pittsburgh rapper used his then-girlfriend Ariana Grande to mold the sound of his tape. Now with his most recent album, Swimming, Miller finds himself again using Grande as his muse, but in a reversed role. The couple has split, and Mac is picking up the pieces from the breakup and rebuilding his life. He traverses this new life he’s living on Swimming with a nakedness, willing to bare his feelings to the world.

From the onset of the album the listener is welcomed into Miller’s world of melancholy and despondency. Even the songs that have a bit of an uptempo vibe to them feel like Mac is smiling through the pain, and gifting you a jam when he really just wants to talk about this void he’s living in. He often riffs on the loneliness of not just his breakup, but the isolation frequently attached to fame. In the first verse of the album, Mac gently empties his emotions about his lonely life over a soulful, spacy beat. “And I got neighbors, they’re more like strangers/We could be friends/I just need a way out of my head/I’ll do anything for a way out/Of my head,” he sings on the opener, “Come Back to Earth.”

Watching Mac grow as an artist has been an interesting adventure for his fans. He’s worn a multitude of hats to a varying degree of success, but on Swimming we see Mac rounding himself into a bonafide artist above everything else. Sure he raps, but he raps sparingly, opting more for a sing-song delivery over the jazzy beats. And it plays very well. He allows the lavish beats — he had help sculpting this lush sound by Thundercat, John Mayer, and Jon Brion — to propel the album forward, careful to never get in the way of the groovy rhythm. Perhaps the best example of this comes on the penultimate song “2009.” It opens with a beautiful orchestra feel, like the Beethoven Pandora station hijacked the album. Sweeping violins, and solemn piano keys set the temperature for the first minute of the song, then Mac hops in and puts on a pensive display about his growth as a rapper. In the chorus he sings, “Oh, no, I take it if it’s mine, I don’t stay inside the lines/It ain’t 2009 no more,” referencing his formative years as a rapper, years with commercial success due to riding what was hot (staying inside the lines), but ones where he was ripped critically. By the second verse he’s even more introspective, rapping “I struck the fuck out and then I came back swingin’/Take my time to finish, mind my business/A life ain’t a life ’til you live it/I was diggin’ me a hole big enough to bury my soul/Weight of the world, I gotta carry my own/My own, with these songs I can carry you home.”

While the album undoubtedly has somber overtones, there’s also delight in the darkness. On “Ladders” it feels like another beat laced with gloomy emotions, then one of the funkiest beats — and there a lot of them — comes roaring in with a thumping bass, plucky strings, and fantastic horns combining to create the foundation for one of the album’s strongest songs. The second verse on “Ladders” is laden with tight internal rhyme schemes, and Mac’s ripping them off with a rapid tongue. “All the- lights flickerin’, hittin’ the right switches/I’m livin’ this life different and missin’ the flight bullshittin’,” Mac raps with the precision of a surgeon’s scalpel.

At first listen, the album feels daunting. You’ve just listened to an artist unsheathe his emotions for slightly under an hour. You might feel drained, but that’s the effect an album this personal should have on you as a listener. But by second listen, you start picking up on the intricacies of the tape — finger snaps here, synths there, ad-libs far in the background from Snoop Dogg or J.I.D — and you realize the detail that is contained, and suddenly the album is much more compelling to consume.

But all of this is not to say the album is without flaw. Across the 13 song, 59 minute album there are low points, and that’s mainly due to Mac never introducing a guest for even a solitary verse. Mac’s certainly improved his singing over the years, but it’s easy to imagine someone like the Weeknd taking over at least one chorus, and instantly elevating the album. Swimming just drags at times due to the monotony of Mac solely providing the vocals.

Overall, though, this is an incredibly cathartic album for Mac, and one that showcases his growth in the music industry. He skillfully turns introspective over stellar production, and turns in arguably his best album to date.

Rating: 7.7/10