One of the world’s most endearing ironies is that sexy drill … well, sexy drill usually just isn’t that sexy. Really, that’s almost the point. The genre’s name even sounds like a self-parody. Its practitioners are typically in on the joke, too. Cash Cobain can make you remember that time y’all were gone off that Henny, but we all know he’s about to rhyme that with “I’ma eat on your pussy like Dennys.” Smooth as he sounds, Bay Swag’s an undercover fuck boy in a disguise he just copped from a bodega. Chow Lee’s Sex Drive album cover is literally just him fucking a girl on the side of the road. It’s all more crude than seductive — rambunctious fun rather than Casanova romance. With spurts of lucid earnestness and an angel-kissed tonality, Wolfacejoeyy’s latest album, Cupid, is a spiritual remix on the concept.

Playing out over a tidy 34 or so minutes, the LP is a stylistic Venn diagram of Jeremih and Cobain, with Wolface swirling his diaphanous tenor into painterly sexcapades and splashes of unguarded sincerity. He’ll never turn down the chance to tell baddies about their pretty pussies, but a lot of the time he seems genuinely sweet enough to live up to his album title. Cruising over a synth line and a faded vocal sample for “Number,” Wolface thumbs through a cache of baddies like a zoomer “Girls, Girls, Girls,” punctuating his saccharine analysis with the type of hook that straddles thirst and incessant affection: “What’s your number? What’s your sign?/ Girl, I want you to bе mine/ Baby, please don’t wastе no time, no, whoa/ I know you sexy and you fine.” Is he a pesky loverboy or a player who’s a little too desperate to get in your pants? It’s unclear, but the charm is undeniable.

Wolface continues the tightrope act for tracks like “3Star,” where he croons over twitchy lasers and sullen piano for poetry that’s simultaneously sleazy and adoring. He plants his gentle intonations with the tenderness of a cheek kiss: “You ain’t never been a ho, so we ain’t doin’ hotels/ I’ma put you in a villa with a couple doorbells.” Fused with frenetic, but misty production, it’s all as smooth as a player’s slick talk — or, depending on how you hear it, as soft as a lover’s caress. And he still makes some time to get a little weird.

Embedded with flourishes of koto strings and some disembodied vocals from Wolface and BEAM, “Nympho” is good ol’ classic freaky fun. While he wasn’t able to clear the Missy Elliott sample that inspired it, the track emanates sleekly futuristic fun; imagine if Ginuwine and PartyNextDoor decided to make a “Pony 2025.” “The Ass Song,” which feels like a nod to Big Sean’s “A$$,” is quite a bit less successful, as its mournful keys and jittery percussion are discordant in a way that’s more “ehh” than rewarding. There’s also a lack of reinvention that makes a moot point of any meta humor that comes with calling a track “The Ass Song.” Play Cash Cobain had a similar misstep with Cash’s Soulja Boy-sampling “Dunk” last year.

What Wolface gains in suaveness, he loses in grit and the element of surprise. While Cash Cobain, Chow Lee, and Bay Swag can make some mistakes and aren’t as convincingly slick as Wolface, their crudeness – in addition to Cash’s even more inventive production and more varied cadences – prevents their projects from ever becoming monotonous. Cupid is really fun, and I like that it trims some fat from last year’s Valentino, but running it back, you find yourself wondering whether there’s any real difference between “Finsta” and “Number”; the (comparative) lack of brazen sleazery takes away some of the propulsive friction that makes sexy drill the trash TV of hip-hop. Wolface classes it up, but that isn’t always as gratifying as a cheap thrill.

COLD AS ICE

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