Jonatan Leandoer Hastad, better known as Yung Lean, is one of the most influential artists most people have not heard of. The young Swedish rap sensation had been making waves back in 2013 when he dropped his “Unknown Death 2002” mixtape, a bizarre project that took elements of vaporwave and rap and combined them into “cloud rap,” a dreamy, ethereal sound that felt truly original at the time. Lean’s nonchalant delivery and bizarre style made him into one of the first “meme” rappers, following in the footsteps of trailblazers like Lil B and Tyler, the Creator. Rising out of the internet alone, Lean formed the Sad Boys, one of the most interesting fanbases in pop-culture: packs of teenagers wearing bucket hats and The North Face fleece jackets, obsessed with early 2000s nostalgia and Arizona green iced tea.

As the dust settled and trends changed, many people started to see Lean as a thing of the past. While his sound showed improvement in later releases like “Kyoto” and “Yoshi City,” due mainly to the genius work of his producer friends Yung Gud and Yung Sherman, Lean was showing almost no progress lyrically. Droning on about drugs, video games and emotions repeatedly, his music was starting to grow more stale as the years went on. This is what made his song “Hoover” off his last album Warlord so exciting; finally it seemed like Lean was ready to make a drastic change to his sound, tossing the dreamy, ethereal vibe he was known for in favor of aggressive, industrial, in-your-face tracks. While the single “Hoover” fulfilled this vision, the rest of “Warlord,” unfortunately, fell short.

On his newest album, “Stranger,” he comes closer to doing the 180-degree turn he showed his fans he was capable of. Not completely falling off the edge, “Stranger” still has plenty of things that brought older fans in: synths soaked in reverb, catchy hooks, trap drum beats and plenty of references to the Sad Boys culture he helped create.

“I’m a real-life mannequin, get it then I dip,” Lean raps on the first track, “Muddy Waters,” sounding like he was just shot with a tranquilizer dart. “In a Percocet river I got gills like a fish.” While Lean is usually nowhere close to having a good flow, he can usually redeem himself by having a fun, memorable hook.

A perfect example of this would be the next track, “Red Bottom Sky.” It is one of the catchiest songs that Lean has written in recent memory as a melody that sticks with the listener for days on end until they are forced to listen to it on repeat. “Ice dropping, red bottom sky,” he sings, his voice sounding amazing floating over a dense, atmospheric pad. “Metallic Intuition” is a moody, dreary trap banger that shows Lean is improving his writing, even if some of the lines still hinge on being cringe-inducing.

That is the odd thing about “Stranger.” Shockingly, it shows Lean’s strongest songwriting is on tracks where there is close to no rapping.

The piano ballad “Agony” helps finish the album off, and it marks a huge contrast to the rest of the track list with just how sincere it sounds. It feels like this song is Lean taking his training wheels off, kicking hollow trap beats to the curb in favor of creating real, raw music. What is obvious on this album is that Lean is building toward something. It will just take more time to figure out exactly what that is.

Photo: by Stuart McAlpine (https://goo.gl/Vsqu2z) via flickr