SWAG

The musical energy and imagination here is Bieber at his most confident.

For most of its 50-plus-minute runtime, Bieber appears, finally, entirely unencumbered. .... When Bieber dissociates into safe territory, alongside rappers Gunna, Sexyy Red, and Cash Cobain, on a trio of totally adequate but otherwise impersonal, paint-by-numbers R&B love songs, the specter of an algorithmic Spotify playlist looms. .... SWAG’s riskiest and most unexpected, are its most rewarding.

Most of the sturdiest music on “Swag” is on the first half; the second half is a scattershot amalgam mostly consisting of vocal demos with lyrics that feel incomplete, or at least understudied, and humor skits about Bieber’s relationship to Black culture, featuring the comedian Druski.

Swag is a perfectly decent record, albeit one that lacks lyrical flair, emotional depth or any sense of responsibility.

What distinguishes “Swag” from “Journals” and “Changes” is that this album feels much rawer and more improvisatory than the earlier ones; the production throughout is murky and smeared, and the record includes a couple of demo-like tracks. .... Shaggy, disarming, often quite beautiful.

He remains relentless in his pursuit of artistic greatness. He doesn’t quite reach it on “Swag,” but he does stretch his creative boundaries, landing on something messier and challenging yet, above all, inarguably intriguing.