Future, the 33 year old Atlanta-based rapper, singer, and auto-tune enthusiast has – finally – foregone the sensitive, emotional music style best known from his earlier albums, Pluto and Honest. He’s given us two full albums to digest back to back, and it shows that he is one of the most versatile rappers out there.

The March Madness rapper has completely transformed his musical style from a trappy street persona, whose music is more akin to Xanax-induced mumble rap sprinkled with autotune, and turned into a soulful, urban pop-filled, R&B singer. Thats right. He’s singing.

With, Future, we were given another taste of his formulaic, redundant style which is, at best, another merely passable set of tracks in a world where average is the goal. Many fans of Future will say the heavy, mumbled, and whispered druggy autotune that fills the tracks end to end is his signature sound, and I would be inclined to agree. However, underneath the perfect pitch matching of a computer, it isn’t hard to see what lays underneath. Lackluster lyricism, repetitive rhythms and mundane melodies make up the majority of this record, and there isn’t any autotune that can save it.

I was listening to Future when I read that Future was going to release another album the next Friday. I already disliked Future, so learning about another release from the same artist did not excite me. Fortunately, I couldn’t have been happier to be wrong.

Future’s newer release, HNDRXX, came exactly a week after the chart-topping Future. Listening to the album, it is genuinely hard to believe that the rapper who made Future is the same as the one who made HNDRXX. Future is singing through the entire album, and it shows on the two tracks that feature The Weeknd and Rihanna. It was incredibly encouraging to see him reuniting with past collaborators who have produced hits before (see: Low Life and Loveeeeeee Song) come back again to make even better music. Selfish, the Rihanna-featured track is a sound seldom heard from Future. It’s an emotional ballad about the love and it’s struggles. The message is amplified by the overlapping vocals of both Rihanna and Future on the pre-chorus.

Selfish, along with Comin Out Strong, the track with The Weeknd are the two best tracks, and for good reason. Rihanna and The Weeknd are industry leading artists, so they definitely know what they’re doing. Highlight songs of the album include My Collection, Fresh Air, Incredible, and Keep Quiet. This is not because they’re “trap bangers” like Future would describe, but because they’re an arrival to a more musical sound from Future, not mumbled autotune.

I truly could not be happier with how HNDRXX turned out. While songs from Future were taken out of my music rotation a couple days later, I still shuffle the HNDRXX through my playlists. After the release of Future, I held firm in the conviction that Future didn’t really have much versatility and was going to sound pretty much the same forever. With HNDRXX, my opinion has completely changed. It’s so nice to see rappers that are trying something totally new and pushing a different sound to their listeners (see: Childish Gambino’s Awaken, My Love!). This is hands down Future’s best album yet, but that could change if he decides to release another album next week, and another after that, and another one. You never know with this guy.