It may appear disorienting that Kanye West, at age 42, has made a hard turn toward worship music. But West has always been making worship music, both in his literal embrace of religious themes and iconography, and also in his belief that songs should be a vehicle for moral tugs of war, philosophical reckoning and ecstatic praise. The only thing that has changed is the packaging.

“Jesus Is King,” his ninth album, released last week after a string of delays, is very much of the West oeuvre. A more engaged and vivid album than “Ye,” from last year, though nowhere as robust as “The Life of Pablo” from 2016, it is bare-bones and curiously effective, emotionally forceful and structurally scant. It has the scent of haste, and also of urgency — these songs work familiar West turf, but with almost no filigree beyond faith.

Since 2008, when he deconstructed his bluster on “808s & Heartbreak,” but particularly since the tectonic, industrial shift of “Yeezus” in 2013, West has made texture his palette far more than rhyme, subject matter or melody. His verses have gotten terser and snarlier (and he has spoken of not always writing them himself), and his best songs work primarily on visceral, nontextual levels.

The result is “Yeezus” for Jesus, packed with hard sonic jolts. West understands the weapons-grade power of a gospel choir, and deploys it from the album’s opener, “Every Hour” — quite simply, a ringing alarm clock shaking off the fatigue of the last couple of years.