I love Kanye. I love the old Kanye. I love the new Kanye. I can see you shaking your heads from here. “What is with this guy?” you ask. First Kyrgios, now Kanye- two men with personalities and egos so contrasting with mine. But still I connect with them because they’re flawed yes, but they’re real. Kanye bares all of his emotions and opinions, unpopular and downright wrong as they sometimes are, with no abandon. I would take that every day of the week compared to the PR savvy, carefully managed personas of stars like Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran.

Despite only being released on October 25th, there has already been a myriad of reviews, predictably mixed. How someone can definitively write off a record as ‘trash’ hours after it’s release angers me. But I’m not surprised by the major music magazine publications, who probably gave their newest intern half an hour to listen to it on Spotify and spin a number wheel for the rating. ( I’m still kept awake at night wondering how Pitchfork decided Justin Bieber’s ‘Sorry’ was one of the top 200 songs of the decade- and even managed to link its meaning to the Black Lives Matter protests…)

Ok so the album. We begin with the rousing ‘Every Hour’ and if you hadn’t inferred it from the title already, you’ll now know the jist of what’s to come. Kanye’s Sunday Service Choir, used sparingly throughout surprisingly, is an instant tone setter.

Selah is my standout of the album, by a fair distance. It is Kanye at his best- razor-sharp focus in his rap bars, and exquisite production- the thunderous beats followed by the ‘hallelujahs’ would uplift even the most apathetic of listeners. I can only dream about how incredible this would sound live.

‘Closed on Sunday’ is either the work of a genius or complete garbage. It is being received mostly as the latter. To be honest I’m still not sure, I do think the track is adds a touch of humour after the heavy opening. The’ Chick Fil A’ nonsense seems to mesh well with the album on the whole as a light hearted departure. A pickle on its own tastes horrible, but in a cheeseburger works….

Keeping up with my food analogies, the tracks following ‘Closed on Sunday’ seem as if Kanye knows he has all the ingredients for a show-stopping cake, but refuses to put icing on it. All have their moments- the beginning of ‘On God’, the harmonies closing ‘Everything We Need’, the bassline in ‘Water’. But like many critics have already noted, they have an unfinished, demo feel, and all end much too soon.

That just might be the point however. Kanye isn’t striving to make a smash hit masterpiece like ‘Runaway’ from My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. This album is a marker of his new direction, and it seems that he doesn’t need a lead single swarming the spotlight of his changed mindset.

Any thoughts I had of the album being mired in mediocrity vanished with ‘Use this Gospel’. Yes it’s stripped back from the soaring ‘Law of Attraction’ on the scrapped Yandhi (leaks are scattered online). I keep going back to the importance of the album as a whole project though, and JIK needs this version of ‘Use this Gospel’ in it’s simplicity, calmness, and the staggering beauty of the saxophone solo from Kenny G.

Lyrically Kanye shifts from standard gospel music tropes “King of Kings, Lord of Lords, all the things He has in store” (God is), to personal points he feels the need to make- from trying to clarify the ‘slavery as a choice’ firestorm and justifying the price of Yeezys in On God. There is nothing wrong with using gospel music tropes- especially as Kanye is wading in to gospel music. But in his likely follow up records, it will be fascinating to see how Kanye moves forward- gospel music isn’t about reinventing the wheel through lyrics, but there is an abundance of biblical allegories and spiritual imagery for Kanye to swim through when he’s finished wading.

As a stand alone, 27 minute work, Jesus is King is solid without nearing the heights of his previous releases. But it might still be the most important in his career trajectory. This will become clearer especially if the planned Christmas Day Sunday Service album is released, as we will find out if JIK was a teaser or the ceiling of Kanye’s musical evolution.

Whatever you may think about him, Kayne has always been an influencer in the music scene. 808s and Heartbreak was initially panned by critics but ended up spawning the rise of autotune, despite T-Pain’s protestations that he came first. Yeezus was a sonic boom unheard of in mainstream hip-hop. What legacy will JIK leave? My hope is for it to influence artists to strive to push for more introspection lyrically- not necessarily regarding religion. Because if a song with its main lyric like “is it too late now to say sorry?” makes the top 200 tracks of the next decade…I won’t be a happy 35 year old.