D.C./Virginia artist Substantial has been releasing music for years now, with his most recent full-length album coming in January of 2017, when he released The Past is Always Presents in the Future. However, last December, Substantial released an instrumental EP called Seeds, which not only reminded everyone that he’s a producer as well as an emcee, but also promised an instrumental album to come in the near future. Now that album, The Garden, is finally here.

Substantial has been making music for the better part of twenty years, but up until this point, he’s never released an instrumental album before. The tricky thing about that is that for all this guy has accomplished in his career, the instrumental album is a unique challenge, especially in this day and age. It’s not enough to come up with a couple of funky samples, or some beautiful downtempo beats, you have to compose songs that are strong enough structurally and melodically to hold listeners attention for forty-plus minutes. It might sound easy in writing, but there are tons of instrumental releases out there that just kind of fade into mediocrity. They don’t sound bad, but they don’t hold your attention, either, especially after you’re done listening to it. And that’s the challenge that Substantial faces with The Garden. The album opens strong with the disco groove of “Show Up & Show Off,” which gave me some hope that Substantial might be able to pull this off. However, as the album continues, for as talented as Substantial is, you are reminded that this is a debut album for him as an instrumental album, and there are some growing pains as he figures out what works and what doesn’t. There isn’t anything bad or offensive about the album, but it is a little up and down. He’ll really grab my attention with one song, and then I’ll find myself drifting along for a song or to as the music becomes pleasant and just a little unremarkable, only to be jostled a song later when he again lays down something truly interesting. This isn’t a problem that’s unique to Substantial, and if he wants to continue down this path, I know he’ll only get better at it.

As long as Substantial has been making dope hip hop and gradually improving as an emcee and producer, becoming an instrumental artist is another challenge altogether. The Garden is a solid first step in that direction, but he does fall into lulls here and there across the album, which might be expected on a debut instrumental album. Hopefully he’ll stay with it, though, because he does hint as some truly interesting musical ideas here and there that could blossom into something greater as he goes along.