After twelve years of instrumental albums, Chilly Gonzales has a lot to get off his chest. The notebooks that had remained empty since the 2011 orchestral rap opus “The Unspeakable Chilly Gonzales”, have been filled with words again since the beginning of 2022, after Gonzo ended a long decade of psychoanalysis. A coincidence? Hardly. Behind all the wordplay and name-dropping (including Ron Jeremy, Marie Kondo, Genghis Khan and Philip Glass), the songs that have made it onto the new album “Gonzo” reveal a persistent tension between conviction and confession, delusion and self-awareness and, ultimately, gratitude. The tension between creativity and commerce is also a topic that has long preoccupied Gonzo. Is this really a rap album? Instrumental pieces such as the Stravinsky-esque “Fidelio” or the tearful lachrymose “Eau de Cologne” remind the listener of Gonzo's self-declared role as a “musical genius”, while the words and rhymes of the previous verses linger in the ear.