Five years after Alfredo lit the fuse, Freddie Gibbs and The Alchemist return with Alfredo II, not so much sequel as lower-albedo, game-puppeteering echo. Where the first LP leaned into noir-rap elegance, with its frosted glass loops and baroque menace, this follow-up cuts sharper, with fibrous optics cutting way close to the bone. Gibbs sounds more paranoid, more surgical, trading the smoother cadences of Alfredo for clipped, razor-edged bars. The Alchemist, meanwhile, keeps things tense and unadorned, leaving empty space where before there was overabundant swagger. It's their second full-length together, following 2020's Grammy-nominated debut, and third collab overall, after 2018's Fetti with Currensy.