Earlier in their careers, Future and Metro Boomin always sounded committed to bringing the best and the weirdest out of each other. The menace in the pits of Metro’s beats matched Future’s drug tales and bouts of dead-eyed hedonism, and darker, stranger variants on that chemistry kept things exciting. Whether it’s the seething snap of an “I Serve the Base,” the creaking minimalism of a “My Collection,” or the fidgety pomp of a “Jumpman,” the duo always pushed the boundaries of mainstream trap in seedier directions.
And that was the biggest issue with their first official collaborative album We Don’t Trust You. They still crafted a few mean sleeper hits, but outside of the rich-guy rapper beef simmering in between the lines, their edges had dulled. For all the buildup, too many of those songs took the Capital-R Rap Album prompt too seriously, rehashing old ideas in grander, blander ways. The double-disc sequel album, We Still Don’t Trust You, is a more encouraging heel turn. Future and Metro sharpen some of that bite by bringing their ears to a brighter, slightly sappier space.
It’s still familiar ground for both of them. Future, in particular, is back in the emotional headspace that fueled so much of HNDRXX, swirling between flexing from his throne and lovesick come-ons. He still relishes playing the villain on occasion—“One Big Family” is about juggling upwards of 20 women at a time, three of whom share the same name—but there’s just as much tear-soaked reflection over exes and post-coital shopping sprees. On the neon-bright “Drink N Dance,” he croons about racing Maybachs and throwing lavish sex parties in Abu Dhabi like he just found a rare foil Pokemon card. Later, on “Mile High Memories,” he’s looking for silver linings in a lover who might be doing him dirty, belting “You can fuck on him as long as you thinkin’ ‘bout me,” trying and failing to sound above it all. It isn’t often that Future gets the short end of the stick, and hearing him jump between player and patsy, sometimes in the same song, remains electrifying.
For Metro’s part, he’s actually found a way to turn the Achilles’ heel of his post-COVID output—production that sounds too polished and anonymous—into a strength. The title track veers toward synth-pop that wouldn’t sound out of place on The Weeknd’s Dawn FM, complete with Abel mocking his old label OVO in falsetto (“They shooters making TikToks!”). Several songs dip into various shades of R&B, from the new-age Isley Brothers smoothness of “All to Myself” to “Gracious,” which sounds like a stripped-back version of the kind of plugg&b that Summrs or Highway would drool over.