Twenty years on from his clean break with NSYNC, Justin Timberlake’s “time to grow up” solo debut feels like a dispatch from another world, one where he hadn’t thrown Janet Jackson under the bus post-Super Bowl or proven to be less sympathetic than “Cry Me A River” subject Britney Spears. Those personal shortcomings are probably as good a reason you could have to dismiss Justified, because it’s a lot harder to casually discard on a purely musical basis. The Neptunes Empire took the potential of Justin’s MJ-adjacent pop’n’B aspirations as far as anyone could have possibly taken it — at least until Timbaland, who sounds like he’s merely warming up here (“(Oh No) What You Got”; Bubba Sparxxx feature “Right for Me”), ushered him through his “actually I’m Prince now” phase four years later. And if the Neptunes’ weirdness here is a little more pared back than what they provided for Kelis or Britney or their own N*E*R*Dy selves, Justin’s able to match its still-high energy level right on the mark — and sound thoroughly geeked with enthusiasm doing it. It could all be chops and technique in the service of a persona that hasn’t held up, but we’d need at least a few more Man of the Woods-caliber faceplants to cancel out how well jams like “Like I Love You,” “Rock Your Body,” and “Señorita” carry out its libidinous affability.

– Nate Patrin