By Gary Graff
After nearly seven years without an album, is certainly making up for lost time — not just with two albums this year but with each weighing in at more than 70 minutes, and with even longer deluxe editions.
That’s a great deal of music for any artist to produce in a single year, but the good news is that “2 of 2” is actually better, and certainly more consistent, than the initial “20/20 Experience.” The new set has the benefit of the best song between the two — the single “Take Back the Night” which, despite some controversy over its title, is a lithe slice of dance pop that sounds like what Philly soul producer Thom Bell might have done with Michael Jackson’s “Don’t Stop ’til You Get Enough.”
Coming in just behind that are tracks such as hard-hitting “TKO,” the loping funk of the opening “Gimme What I Don’t Know (I Want),” all nine-and-a-half minutes of the jungle-flavored “True Blood” and the gritty soul-rock of “Drink You Away.” The album-ending couplet of “Not a Bad Thing” and the feathery hidden track “Pair of Wings,” meanwhile, are the most outwardly pop songs Timberlake has recorded since his days with *NSYNC, and there are cameos by Drake (“Cabaret”) and Jay Z (“Murder”), the latter of whom seems to have just learned that Yoko Ono broke up the Beatles.
As on “The 20/20 Experience,” the sheer length of some of these songs gets Timberlake in a bit of trouble. “Only When I Walk Away” in particular goes through a pair of jarring shifts, none of which gets any better than the first few minutes. But most of the material here holds up well, making “2 of 2” much more than afterthought or a collection of leftovers.
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