Bando Stone and The New World - Childish Gambino: Review

Childish Gambino is an artist whose career has taken him through a dynamic range of sounds and styles. From the humor-laced hip hop of the still solid Because The Internet to the Funkadelic soul of the excellent Awaken My Love, calling Gambino a "rapper" has been increasingly inadequate of a classification as the years go by. Earlier this year Gambino shares ATAVISTA, a finished, and marginally improved version of his divisive 2020 album. But that merely set the table to Bando Stone, which has been marketed as the "final" Childish Gambino album. 

To be completely honest, I think the Bando Stone era got off to a great start. Lead single Lithonia is easily the best song here and that was obvious to me from the very first time I heard it. It piles one catchy refrain after another on top of a roaring rock instrumental to great results. He also shared In The Night which is a pretty nice song that gets solid contributions from Amaarae and Jorja Smith. 

There are a few other solid contributions from guests on the album. Talk My Shit is literally Gambino's slut anthem for which he spits bars about taking his titties about and recruits Flo Milli. She turns in a short but intense verse on a song that's funny, even if it's also pretty novel. My favorite feature on the record is Foushee on Running Around. Much like SZA on SOS Gambino dips into the pop-punk well on this record and just like with SZA, I like this track quite a bit. He and Foushee absolutely shine on the song and it has a genuinely infectious demeanor. 

Elsewhere are features that do their best, but are met with underwhelming songs. Survive is one of numerous songs on the record that feel straight out of Atavista. It sounds decent but I think the hook is a total whiff and Chloe doesn't do much to elevate anything. Can You Feel Me has an adorable feature from Gambino's son Legend, but it's in service of an otherwise pretty middling and forgettable track. Later on the record's pretty rough second half Khruangbin takes over on the song Happy Survival which is exactly as pointless as most Khruangbin songs. 

That isn't to say that there are no more highlights on the record. Steps Beach is a gentle little number about getting away from it all with someone special and it sounds exactly like it. I love the easy acoustic guitar strumming and sweet backup vocals. Yoshinoya is a two-part song with a solid first half and an absolutely killer second half. Gambino proves he is still capable of not just rapping, but absolutely firing on all cylinders. Finally the closer A Place Where Love Goes has an adorable hook and serves as a wonderful finale after a portion of the record without many highlights. 

The biggest issue with Bando Stone is simply its wild inconsistency. The album is willing to switch up its sound and style rapidly from track to track and the quality is all over the place. Some songs are loudly bad. The opener Hearts Were Meant To Fly has ugly vocal effects that rob Gambino of any of his intensity. Those unpleasant vocals come back even worse on Got To Be which ruins its raving breakdown with singing that's very difficult to listen to. The other worst song is Cruisin which has a Yeat feature for absolutely no reason. It's already a pretty rough track before he pops up but Yeat just has absolutely nothing to do on this track but sounds awkward and out of place. 

Elsewhere on the record are forgettable songs like Real Love and We Are God. No Excuses which is probably a bit longer than it needs to be but ends on a high note. And Dadvocate which despite having one of the worst names I've ever seen for a song in all the time I've been reviewing albums, is still decent and at least self-aware about how corny it is. 

This album seems almost methodically planned around the idea of taking one step forward and one step back. It lacks true highlights beyond Lithonia and features some of the dumbest experiments of Gambino's entire career. So while there are a lot of songs I sort of like on the record, it's the most inconsistent of his discography even including the original version of Atavista. If this is the final note of his career as Childish Gambino after all, it's a bit of a flicker to go out on. 5/10

For more outside-the-box hip hop check out my review of James Blake and Lil Yachty's Bad Cameo