Royce 5’9” (formerly Royce da 5’9”) has done a lot of his most visible rapping as a plus-one. His first appearance for many was on Eminem’s The Slim Shady LP as one half of Bad Meets Evil on a song of the same name. He caught his second wind years later as one of the senior members of the major label castoff Voltron that is Slaughterhouse (with Joe Budden, Crooked I, and Joell Ortiz). Most recently, he’s functioned as DJ Premier’s rapping partner in PRhyme. Royce is an excellent supporting character, but things never came together for any of his solo records, which tend to drag.

His sixth studio album, Layers, isn’t much different, albeit not for lack of trying. Royce checks all the boxes on paper here, fully loading it with big-time producers, skits, and tons of careful introspection, the typical keys to a success for any traditionalist rap album. But this lyrical marathon falls short by any conceivable benchmark, unable to really get going or sustain momentum until the very end. There’s also plenty of rapping about how good at rapping he is, which is almost always boring.

The main difference between Layers and past Royce records is supposed to be the newfound commitment to full-fledged storytelling, and it’s easy to hear those gears turning on songs like "Startercoat" and "Misses." On the former, he defends 2Pac's place in history, in response to the omission on Billboard's Greatest Rappers of All-Time list from last year (“If Pac ain’t on your list then you ain’t fucking logical”), using a UNLV Starter jacket as a symbol for the influence Pac had on him. On "Misses," he writes about his relationship with his wife, implying it’s difficult being a married rapper. While these are functional stories with interesting plot points, they also prove he has a knack for overthinking (and oversharing), which torpedoes some of the strongest technical rapping on Layers. On “Tabernacle,” he tells the heartbreaking story of losing his grandmother and meeting his newborn son within hours at the same hospital. But he is incapable of building suspense or changing his tone, and what should be an epic tale is reduced to the songwriting equivalent of turn-by-turn navigation—taking readable steps toward a predetermined destination. He’s prone to rapping in bulk, and thus wants to narrate every detail of a story in a linear timetable, telegraphing outcomes; sometimes it’s like a nonfiction book on tape.

When he isn’t attempting to retell his story in extreme detail, Layers is still packed wall-to-wall with Royce's filler-filled rap style, relying heavily on knotty, tightly-packed cadences. This can be dazzling, like on “Off” (“Look in the sky there's a fly sorcerer/ Eyeballing me from a flying saucer/ And my mind is like a full clip/ And my competitions' magazines are running low like the Source and Vibe offices”), and it can also be cringe-worthy, like on “Wait” (“My son got on them 350 boosts Kanye West is dressed in Bape/ Askin' me questions 'bout gettin' to second base/ Wifey textin' SMH”). Then there are outliers like "Shine," where he takes a swing at singsong raps and misses, and "Hard," a song that doesn't even know what story it's trying to tell.

That doesn’t mean that Layers is a complete misfire, though, or that Royce doesn’t have outings where he rattles off some truly impressive performances. The verses on “Gottaknow” are clinical. The Rick Ross and Pusha T-featuring “Layers” and the somber “America” are clear standouts. The album ends strong, from "America" to closer "Off," but much like most of Royce’s solo catalog, there aren't many songs on Layers that really reward replaying or close listening.