Revel in West’s dark, twisted fantasy

KANYE WEST Yeezus HIP-HOP

DOWNLOAD I Am a God, Blood on the Leaves, New Slaves, On Sight, Bound 2

Nobody can say Kanye West didn’t warn us. His new album, Yeezus, is as dark and abrasive as first songs

New Slaves and Black Skinhead promised. It’s also as daring and infectious as anything he has done, and it demands to be heard with speakers on blast. Stark electronic beats, driving dancehall riddims and menacing bass lines underpin his rants on race, sex, commercialism and celebrity. He almost dares you to let your attention wander, throwing in tempo-shifting samples and guttural screams just when you think you know where he’s heading. On the Daft Punk-produced On

Sight, an aggressive West raves over ominous synthesizers that “Yeezy season” is approaching and “a monster is about to come alive again.” The French duo also did Black Skinhead, which finds West boasting about breaking the rules.

On I Am a God, it’s clear that a man of his celebrity operates on a much higher plane than most people. “I just talked to Jesus/He said, ‘What up, Yeezus?’/I said, ‘(Expletive), I’m chillin’/Tryin’ to stack these millions.’ ”

“Chillin’ ” isn’t the best way to describe the intensity with which he delivers his societal critiques on New Slaves and Blood on the Leaves, which samples Nina Simone’s cover of Billie Holiday’s searing Strange Fruit.

By the end, West takes some of the edge off with the smoothed-out Bound 2, which features Charlie Wilson and an old-school sample of the Ponderosa Twins Plus One hit of the same name.

Like everything else West does, Yeezus is immediately stunning but requires repeated listenings to be fully appreciated. He has created a polarizing, multilayered body of work that probably will be debated all summer.

Who does that besides Kanye West? Maybe he’s a Yenius.