A MIKE album is a singular experience in which beats brush, like swaying tree branches, against the rapper’s tranced flow. The beats of Pompeii – MIKE’s half of Pompeii // Utility, the latter half being an Earl Sweatshirt solo album – are not conventional, but they still sound too conventional to gel with MIKE’s vision of rap in any way that resembles his usual manipulated soul samples and airy, hypnagogic palettes.

Surf Gang – New York collective – produced the two albums. I would happily argue they accommodate Earl on Utility far more than they do Mike on Pompeii, as soon as the decaying, ruinous mechanics of this2shallpass segue into the serene keys of 🙁 again 🙂, which immediately nurse Earl’s heavy-hearted flows. The beat of the latter is the sort that MIKE really could’ve benefitted from. In the bank, Earl is the only one laughing.

The expansiveness of Utility is valuable. The two rappers utilise their signature flows over Surf Gang’s production; the open-endedness of Utility breaks up any potential monotony in a way that the cloudy, trappy, pluggy, and mildly atmospheric beats of Pompeii do not.

Utility is hardly perfect; it too sinks into periods that rely on the same basics of Pompeii, but it is the better of the two albums, far more liberating where its highlights are concerned.

Was there much reason for these two albums not to be released separately? I’m not sure. Ever since MIKE and Earl first hooked up (NOT IN THAT WAY, GUYS), Earl has been very encouraging of MIKE’s vision of hip hop. If anything, the possibility of both guys working together is undermined by this bundle of solo albums; the only sense of cohesion being Surf Gang’s production, which again, is unaccommodating on Pompeii.

Best track – 🙁 again 🙂

Rating – 6 out of 10