It’s a listening experience not unlike Todd Rundgren’s Something/Anything?, the gold standard for double albums that deepen and get weirder as they go on. The first Pilot Talk is the most song-oriented and, accordingly, has the best individual songs-“Skybourne,” a posse cut with Big K.R.I.T., Smoke DZA and the psychedelic shimmer of a Shuggie Otis song and “Breakfast,” which is the best song about getting high I’ve ever heard. Pilot Talk 2 is all about language, light on the choruses and heavy on the shenanigans, and the beats are earthier and less baroque than on the first. It’s a little weirder, a little harder to just put on in the background.

Pilot Talk 3 is the black sheep of the three, released nearly five years after the other two into a vastly different rap landscape. It’s more story-oriented, opening with a narrative of Curren$y’s come-up and featuring the only song among the tapes where his perpetual philandering and home-wrecking actually seems like a cause for concern (“Cargo Planes”). Ski is less involved here, and accordingly, it’s slower, less lush, more Southern. Riff Raff even appears on “Froze,” rapping though a frightening Travis Scott filter.

Taken on its own, it’s the least of the tapes by a significant margin.

Here, it darkens the mood as the album seeps into its late hours. Pilot Talk 3 isn’t as good a Pilot Talk release as Weekend at Burnie’s, a lovely little record that rivals the first two tapes in the trilogy. I always thought Burnie’s should be called Pilot Talk 3 instead, but tacking it to the end of this release might tire out listeners.

Currency pilot talk trilogy tour