BEN proves that Macklemore is at his best when he sticks to the confessional

Opener “CHANT” begins with a gentle piano, before building – with help from choral effects, drums, and Tones And I’s powerful vocals – to a full bodied declaration that Haggerty is more alive than ever. Until track six (BEN is long – 15 tracks and 54 minutes long) the theme of not taking life for granted continues ...and then we get to “HEROES.” “We fuck up any city,” Haggerty tells us, on a track that throws back to late 80s hip hop with its record-scratches and N.W.A name-drop. “HEROES” is impressive, poignant in places (“See, my heroes died of overdoses” he says, regret-laced) but it feels as if you've put on a different record.

“LOST/SUN COMES UP” tackles internet addiction, weak in its first half (I cringe at how it’s peppered with “we” rather than “I”) but more effective from Jackson Lee Morgan’s chorus onwards. “Maybe I could buy love,” Haggerty muses, a modern problem for the ages. “GOD’S WILL” explores how he found strength in faith, whilst “TEARS” personifies his relationship with drugs. I keep coming back to the third track, “1984,” a gentle dedication to love, delightful if you can overlook the fact that it feels like it belongs on another album. The lack of cohesion is frustrating.

“I NEED,” starts out nauseatingly materialistic, before turning brutally honest: “I got forty thousand tucked under my mattress / And a ratchet in case anyone'll figure out the address / Security system in my attic, starin' at it / I'm still flexin' on the 'Gram just to show 'em that I have it,” Haggerty confesses. He’s said in interviews that going forward he doesn’t want to inflict pain on himself to write, but it’s hard to deny that drawing from his personal life doesn’t see him at his best. “I NEED” is so truthful it makes you suck in a breath.

The COVID-19 pandemic found Haggerty, like many of us, without routine. Without it, he relapsed. What followed was recovery, and then BEN. Haggerty could have made the sort of music that lifts mood, or dived into his darkest thoughts. He chose to do both, in between other musings. The end result is, frustratingly, uneven.