“[What] y’all lookin’ at?” beckons Jean Dawson’s chain-smoked voice over the opening track to CHAOS NOW*, radioactively setting the stage for his sophomore album.

Jean Dawson’s last album, Pixel Bath, was nearing its second birthday with almost zero sign of a follow-up project from the artist. It wasn’t until mid-September that Dawson announced his latest album: CHAOS NOW*.

Dawson’s four singles off of the album were nothing short of immersive. Songs like “THREE HEADS*” and “SICK OF IT*” feature razor-sharp vocals and guitar chord progressions reminiscent of prime Nirvana, all while Dawson is screaming his lungs out over them. “PIRATE RADIO*” is in an entirely different world from the other two, however, tipped off with a string section and soft and nostalgic performance imitating Fleet Foxes. Versatility shone through in the singles; the only thing left for Dawson to do was keep the momentum going.

And the momentum he kept. The album quickly jumps into an ambient Aphex Twin-ESC noise, where Dawson asks what we’re looking at. After that, it quickly jumps into the ear-splitting guitar production of “THREE HEADS*,” instantly forcing all of my attention into the speakers.

The third track, “GLORY*,” is an infectious number with an instrumental performance that coincides with early 2000s Midwest emo bands like Title Fight. The lyrics reign over Dawson’s rough upbringing with his mother as his only parental figure and that being a detrimental factor in who he is now. The song features Dawson experimenting with flexibility in his hard-to-pin-down sound—in the greatest way possible—with instruments and sounds unlike his previous work up to this point.

Other songs like “POSITIVE ONE NEGATIVE ONE*” and “0-HEROES*” are emotionally expressed through Dawson’s inability to move on from his past life. It seems that these past memories and occurrences have been slowly eating away at him since the album began, but it’s not until now that they have become more visible instead of hiding in the background.

“BAD FRUIT*” is an emotional indie ballad about the hardships of discovering self-identity. Dawson provides one of his best vocal delivery performances to date with unparalleled poetic cadences and lyrics, leaving us with even more questions about Dawson and his genre-less theme.

The eighth track—”SCREW FACE*”—goes in an entirely different direction than the other tracks. The number provides us with a glimpse of Dawson as he is now: a self-entitled “screw face.” The lyrics portray Dawson as a conventionally bad human being with themes of homicide and drug abuse. The scripture in the song is derived from Dawson’s rough upbringing, and as we saw in “GLORY*,” it changed him as he is now.

“BLACK MICHAEL JACKSON*” is a two-part production on Dawson and his friends and comparisons between them growing up and them now. Having already gone through nine tracks on the album that relatively coincide with each other, while this song is amazingly well-made, it feels out of place. The rest of the album is an emotional tracklist about Dawson and his problems while this song feels like more of a flex if anything at all.

The third to last track titled “HUH*” is exactly what it sounds like. The lyrics scream about how Dawson can see through the transparency of his foes and how they don’t even hold a candle to him. Dawson talks about how you can’t stand on your money if you can’t stand on your own, displaying a real character test from Dawson.

The last track is easily my favorite one. “PIRATE RADIO*” is by far one of the best outros that I have ever heard in my entire life. The track is much more pensive than the rest of the album, displaying a form of music that Dawson has never even dipped his toes into. The song is a deeply empowering conclusion, representing emotional maturity for the 27-year-old who hadn’t come to grasp himself until now.

All in all, this album is a crucial stepping stone in Dawson’s rise to stardom. The album doesn’t act as fame and success itself, but rather as a precursor to his destined meteoric rise.