Minneapolis producer Big Cats has been busy lately. Less than two weeks than his last collaboration with Gaunte dropped, he comes right back with a new project with Crunchy Kids emcee/vocalist Chance York, whom he last paired up with back in 2016, when they released Highest Self. Now they’ve finally reunited to release a new album, Deep Dark Hope.

The first thing that hit me in listening to Deep Dark Hope is that this album marks a turn for both Big Cats and Chance York towards a more modern pop/R&B style, at least for a good portion of it. By this I mean that we get big bass, big hooks, and even a little bit of Auto Tune, as the two make their case for the pop charts and the clubs. Of course, there are some key differences that set Chance and Cats apart, the biggest being that while this flavor is true for a good portion of the album, these two can’t help but get at least a little weird and progressive with their music. This means that while you might be bobbing your head along to some pop beats for a minute, you might find yourself in the middle of a jazz trumpet solo, or in the middle of a house music breakdown, for example. In other words, this is what I wished pop music sounded like. For all that Big Cats has accomplished in his career, he’s still finding ways to push himself and his collaborators, which becomes really evident when you listen to this album in proximity to the release with Guante. Chance York has a great melodic delivery to his voice, which is just a little on the high and nasal side, and there’s a playfulness and bounce to his flow that lends itself well to pop music. He’s also very self-aware of how this album might be perceived, at one point making reference to how an audience member might remark that they thought he was “conscious.” The funny thing is that as much as York might try to keep things light with songs like “Girls and Weed,” he does open up and get deeper with his lyricism the further you get into it, with a lot more emotional and intellectual depth than you might get at initial impact. On top of all this, we get some key contributions to the album to help round out the sound from Cameron Kinghorn, Nelson Deveraux, Kristen Korkowski, Eric Mayson, Lydia Liza, and Lady Midnight, who bring some legitimate talent to the table that you’ll be running to look up after you’re done listening to this album.

Deep Dark Hope is what happens when two really talented artists with expansive vision try to make a pop album. Chance and Cats ultimately succeed by making something that’s immediately accessible, but then secretly kind of weird, but you really have to dive in before you realize you’re not in the same place from where you started, and by that point you’re having such a great time, you really don’t care.