Urgency has never been much of a concern for Chuck Inglish. The music he and Mikey Rocks put out as the Cool Kids relies on nonchalance rather than a burning desire to impress—it's the kind of rap that works because they're committed to it and have clearly done their homework when it comes to the brand of 1980s revivalism they trade in, understanding the power of negative space and artful simplicity. On the best Cool Kids songs, the less effort it appears they're expending, the better the results. There's a fine line between drowsy charm and inducing sleep, and when the Cool Kids have run into trouble, it's because they've chosen to play the long game rather than strike quickly and get out before fatigue hits. 30 minutes of stripped-down minimalism is refreshing; an hour of it can be a chore.
This is something that Chuck Inglish's first solo album, Convertibles, smartly avoids. It clocks in at a lean 13 tracks, with only two stretching longer than four minutes. Unsurprisingly, the few songs that flirt with the five-minute mark lack the kind of propulsion needed to make it to the finish line; when he has to make space for extended hooks—like on "P.R.I.S.M.", which finds him adopting a flow more melodic than usual—his songs spit fumes and sputter out of control, unable to regain enough forward motion to correct course.
Then there are the tracks that play up the fact that Inglish is joined by Incubus guitarist and sometimes producer Mike Einziger, whose role on the album seems to be to inject color to Inglish's default monochromatic setting. Einziger manages to add some warmth to the concrete-in-the-shade snap that Inglish favors. While Inglish's production has always paired well with sticky July afternoons, now it often sounds just like one. "Elevators" packs a Cali-certified hydraulic bounce to its considerable punch, and even the most retro-leaning beats feature more elements that they would have in the past, approaching a retro-futurism that fits in 2014 quite well.
Unfortunately, while the guests that drop by Convertibles sound at home on Inglish's updated production, the album leans a little too hard on them. At this point, there are no secrets left with Inglish as a rapper. He continues to focus on his holy trinity of topics: how he's hanging out with your girl, how strong his wardrobe is, and how much cooler he is than you. He pulls this off with an effortless professionalism, but rarely manages to spit something that will perk your ears. His raps have never sounded more like wallpaper than they do here, and this is only amplified when rappers like Action Bronson pop up and drops more quotables in one verse than Inglish does on the entire album. Of course, you don't listen to Chuck Inglish for the kind of raps that you try to cram into 140 characters, but because his music sounds great while driving around in the summer and shooting the shit with friends. Because of this inherent charm, Convertibles ends up a low-stakes affair without being a low-quality one. And when you think about it, that's a pretty fair description of Inglish as an artist.
