Twelve Carat Toothache
| Post Malone
Twelve Carat Toothache
welve Carat Toothache is the fourth studio album by American rapper and singer Post Malone. It was released on June 3, 2022, through Mercury Records and Republic Records. The album contains 14 tracks and includes guest appearances from Roddy Ricch, Doja Cat, Gunna, Fleet Foxes, the Kid Laroi, and the Weeknd. The deluxe edition was later released on June 7, 2022, including two new tracks. -Wikipedia
Critic Reviews
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Pitchfork
Post Malone’s fourth studio album is slick, streamlined, and a little less vulgar and ostentatious than his earlier work—a sign that he’s taking himself more seriously, for better or worse.
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HipHopDX
POST MALONE 'TWELVE CARAT TOOTHACHE' WALLOWS IN INDISTINCT, UNINSPIRING & DIRECTIONLESS MUSIC.
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Rolling Stone
His fourth album is full of big-name cameos, sweeping gestures, and pensive vibes.
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Hot New HipHop
till, twelve carat toothache is far from a bad album. Save for some questionable vocals, some annoyingly bubbly tracks, and an utterly anticlimactic album closer, twelve carat toothache maintains an impressive level of quality from start to finish, and even the album’s most staunchest critics can admit that there is an abundance of great ideas littered throughout Post’s latest record.
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Variety
“Twelve Carat Toothache” finally feels like a transitional album for one of pop’s biggest stars. (And we do mean pop, not hip-hop… he is down to zero rapping on this record, although he’s got a couple of his guests for that.) A transition to an even more unhealthy-sounding mindset? That may not be possible. Back to the more braggadocious music of the past? He sounds too self-realized, in his self-abnegation, for that. But with no small help from Bell, who’s the best kind of musical enabler, Malone’s turns of melodic phrase and aptitude for true confessions are making him a far more interesting artist than we could have guessed even a couple of albums ago. Imagine what he could do if he gets some sleep.
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Financial Times
The singer-rapper’s latest outpouring of gilded pain alludes to depression and alcoholism but also reeks of chauvinism.
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NME
The occasional outdated attitude and some light filler material here and there aside, ‘Twelve Carat Toothache’ is another step up for Post Malone. It’s a record that feels distinctively, inimitably him and succeeds in his goal of sharing his truth. Couple that with his recent comments that he’s also found happiness and it seems like everything is back on the up for Post Malone.
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Stereogum
Whatever your early feelings on Post Malone, you can’t dispute that he’s won — and legitimately grown as an artist. Rap-based amalgamations are par for the course in today’s pop music milieu, and Posty is a huge part of why. Twelve Carat Toothache finds him at a palpable turning point. The human algorithm has officially become self-aware.
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Exclaim!
Too much of the record is concerned with trying to guilt the listener into a false sense of melancholy. It's an album that wants to be played on the drive home by an artist that's best at soundtracking the party, and Malone is in dire need of a recalibration back to what he does best.
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Riff Magazine
Twelve Carat Toothache feels underdeveloped at times and dangerous to listeners at others.Its shallow appeal to the angst and melancholic sentiments of a teenager going through mood swings doesn’t hold up, even with all the best production in the world.
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Consequence
Not Even Post Malone Can Save Post Malone on Twelve Carat Toothache.
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Ratings Game Music
To me, Twelve Carat Toothache is truly a body of work that will make you cry, laugh, dance, and reminisce. While frolicking through the album, you will find yourself falling in love with songs that weren’t made for you, and bookmarking songs that you have the perfect emotion and setting for. Post Malone does exactly what I think he was put on this earth to do with this album: Introduce listeners to new styles of music through charm, tenderness, openness, and daringness.
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Beats Per Minute
Twelve Carat Toothache is a rocky road of an album that, in almost a meta sense, details Post Malone’s rocky road in confronting his demons. It is arguably his most sonically interesting and personal project so far, but its inconsistency punches a few pot-holes in the listening journey. The experimentation here doesn’t always work, but when it does, it shows that Post is heading in some exciting directions for future albums. Ultimately, despite the collaborations aplenty, this project seems less intent on chasing hits and more intent on giving the audience a raw glimpse behind the singer’s diamond teeth. Don’t let the sparkly façade fool you – Post isn’t afraid to let you know he’s just as much a human being, with all its accompanying messes and drama, as the rest of us.
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nomisec
The songs on Twelve Carat Toothache swerve between pain and joy, and while Malone has always fit lament into his albums, these new sad songs don’t feel tortured, labored, or ungracious. Instead, Malone deftly plays up bitterness with a wink on the jaunty “Lemon Tree,” trilling his voice with a playful hyperbole. Elsewhere, the wonderfully over-the-top “Love/Hate Letter to Alcohol,” made with Fleet Foxes’ Robin Pecknold, opens with a cascade of vocal harmonies. The production booms and the drums thunder as Malone sings about getting too drunk and having all of his teeth knocked out. Though you can hear the sorrow in the tone and the lyrics, the song sounds triumphant—like something that could conceivably soundtrack a raucous night out.
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UMusic
ptly named, Twelve Carat Toothache details the extreme lows of fame, coming off the fantastic high from his previous albums that celebrate that very lifestyle. The usual suspects are still there; heartbreak, infidelity, sadness, but what is most revealing is the complete desolation. Post Malone isn’t just depressed, he’s at the deepest part of rock bottom and from that he’s created something hauntingly beautiful.
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Mic Cheque
Somehow, Twelve Carat Toothache doesn’t feel like a real record. It carries the spirit of a posthumous album, cobbled together by Republic Records to make up for pandemic disruptions. And although Post Malone is still alive, he doesn’t seem to be loving the moment of its release like with previous albums. There’s a disconnect present in Twelve Carat Toothache, a synthetic project for both the audience and Post Malone.
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Uproxx
As a whole, Twelve Carat Toothache shows that Post Malone knows what kind of artist he wants to be. He’s not the long-haired, grill-wearing, cultural-appropriating party boy he was when he first stepped onto the scene. At this phase of his life, he’s less interested in making quick hits and more interested in taking himself seriously as an artist. Even if he admittedly is hesitant to play his own album back, the music Twelve Carat Toothache is his most honest and self-aware to date.
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Spectrum Culture
When his songs are personal, he sounds like he wants to kill himself, and when they aren’t, he’s brain-dead.
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East Side Vibes
There are a lot of moments on the record where it felt like Post was trying to do what other artists are doing successfully instead of doing what he wanted to do. The last track of the album is a good example of what the album could have been if he had followed his heart and made the music he wanted to. Unfortunately, I guess we’ll have to hear that from Post Malone. Until then, there are a few songs on this record I do enjoy and will be listening to a lot in the near future.
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Vinyl Chapters
There are certainly some songs that didn’t stand out as much as others such as Euthanasia, Wasting Angels, and Love/Hate Letter to Alcohol, but for the most part, Twelve Carat Toothache is a vastly impressive album that shows Malone still has that magic.
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Stereoboard
On ‘Twelve Carat Toothache’ it means that he (and main collaborator-producer Louis Bell) are reaching for hugely disparate effects and it often implodes—Lemon Tree and Wasting Angels are the most unlistenable examples of this phenomenon. Despite hugely attention grabbing lyrics and looking like a fascinating person, Post Malone’s music feels like bad fusion cuisine. It’s sometimes worse than that, too. It’s as though some excitable chef opened a restaurant serving Indian, Chinese and Mexican food, then put all the dishes into a blender and delivered you a plate of sludge. The chef assures you it’s the ‘future of food’. As you shakily proffer up a fork of mashed up saag aloo, noodles and tortilla chips to your mouth, you're terrified that he might be right.
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Medium
I wouldn’t rank it quite as highly as the likes of Hollywood’s Bleeding, mainly due to the fact that this record didn’t really engage with me nearly as much, while also being a little bit of a mixed bag when it comes to its tracks (the earlier leg was much better than the second). However, I still found it to be a somewhat solid listen with equally solid features, and far from a true blemish on the artists discography.
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The Needle Drop
Post's candor is overshadowed by just how bad this album sounds.
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RapReviews
There are certainly moments of reflection and introspection, but nothing Malone is singing about suggests that the events of the last three years changed him as a person or as an artist. That’s fine. I’m not looking for some great revelation from a guy who sings about the self-inflicted emotional roller coaster he rides on. The ride is the point. His music is about the journey, not the destination.
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Sputnik Music
This is a record that just constantly makes you wish you could enjoy it because of Malone’s charisma and the fact that he was willing to try some new things here. However, all it leaves us with is an inconsistent affair that never quite reaches the lofty heights it sets out to reach.
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musicOMH
A half-in, half-out approach leaves the wobbly-voiced warbler stuck at a fork in the road .
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Clash Magazine
Closing with a raw voice note, Post Malone ends by harking back to periods of lockdown unease, and writer’s block. Indeed, it’s tempting to view the entire record through this lens; a more traditional 14 track run that we’re used to, it neither taps into the largesse of the modern streaming experience nor establishes the succinct album format of old. Neither one thing or another, the lack of definition on the project results in something quietly rebellious, but curiously unsatisfying.
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Stack
While Post Malone has never struggled to present a catchy hook and thumping beat, this offering feels cleaner and more concise than his last LP; each track is purposeful, polished, and stands to mark the beginning of a new era.
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Edge Induced Cohesion
“Cooped Up” has shown itself to be minor hit, and “I Like You (A Happier Song)” is likely to be a minor hit as well, but most everything else here is made up of moody album tracks that work better to tell a picture of a soul in despair. This album, far from being a flop, is a cry for help. Let us hope that someone listens.
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PAN M 360
Having not only incredible songwriting ability, Post also co-produced and played a variety of instruments on this album. In contrast, his previous three albums heard Post playing some guitar on the first two (Stoney and Beerbongs & Bentleys) and not playing any instruments on his last (Hollywood’s Bleeding). With the latter seeming the most disconnected and thrown together of his previous three releases, Toothache feels incredibly personal with Malone’s touch on every track. The fact he is only 26 and is so versed musically, with the ability to convey an extensive range of emotion, is astounding.
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The Post
The album, with many underwhelming features and indistinguishable songs, is not Malone's best, but he provides imagery of the artist at his lowest.
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AllMusic
While the rap-preferring fans will still gravitate to his first two efforts, listeners with an appreciative ear for his genre-sampling maturation into the mainstream will find Twelve Carat Toothache to be a fascinating emotional exploration of a conflicted artist who can't help but churn out star-making hits at the expense of his own happiness.
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Get About Columbia
Sometimes outdated stands and some lighter filler here and there aside, the “Twelve Carat Toothache” is another step up to Post Malone. It’s a record that he feels uniquely about, and succeeds in his goal of sharing his truth. Add to that his recent comments that he’s found happiness too and it seems like everything is back up for Post Malone.
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