7/10

On their second studio album '...Then After?', Freidrich$ and Azalias' collaborative project Outsideness broaden the strange language they established on debut offering '...From What?' until the borders almost disappear completely. R&B, acoustic songwriting, fractured electronics, rock, UK garage, drum and bass and left-field pop all surface across the record, but rarely in isolation. Here, styles overlap, interrupt one another and mutate mid-song, giving the album a constant feeling of movement.

Tracks like ‘Alright’, ‘Freedom’, ‘Haunt’, ‘Got Me’ and ‘Dance’ all approach structure with a similar sense of freedom. A track might begin with little more than voice, guitar or piano before suddenly widening into something much more elaborate. While others seem to shed their original shape entirely, drifting towards unexpected outros or rebuilding themselves halfway through.

Yet for all that experimentation, '...Then After?' never feels chaotic for chaos’ sake. Azalias provides the emotional thread running through all of it. Her voice can be understated and almost conversational, then suddenly open into something huge, giving Freidrich$ room to make increasingly unusual production choices without letting the songs lose their human centre.

Over the years, Freidrich$ has long seemed fascinated by music that arrives close to pop without ever behaving entirely like it, and this record pushes that idea much further. There are hooks everywhere, but they are surrounded by choices that feel gloriously unconcerned with conventional taste. Rough textures remain exposed, transitions are allowed to feel abrupt, and songs are given permission to wander as they play.

Where '...From What?' introduced a fascinating collision of personalities, '...Then After?' sounds like two artists increasingly confident in how much they can get away with together. It's bigger, warmer, stranger and more melodic, but crucially, not cleaner.

Outsideness haven't abandoned their original identity here. Instead, they've discovered that its most defining characteristic was never a particular genre at all. It was simply the freedom to keep changing the question.