Let the Smokers Shine the Coupes

"Let the Smokers Shine the Coupes" is It's Almost Dry at its most intoxicatingly confident, a track that sounds like celebration filtered through the particular cool of someone who has nothing left to prove. The production — carrying both Kanye and Pharrell's DNA — builds a groove that feels simultaneously vintage and contemporary, the drums hitting with a looseness that contrasts pleasurably with Push's locked-in precision. The title itself functions as a directive to a world organized for your pleasure, status expressed through delegation of tasks to people paid to maintain the lifestyle's machinery. Lyrically the track layers luxury brand references with drug trade callbacks in the push-pull that defines Push's best work — never fully leaving the origins, never pretending the present wasn't built on specific histories. His delivery has never sounded more relaxed or more threatening, the ease itself a form of dominance. At the album's midpoint this track functions as a deep breath, the recognition that the record you're making might be the best of your career and the willingness to enjoy that realization. Music for driving expensive cars slowly, not because you have nowhere to go but because the going is the point.