Still D.R.E.

Dr. Dre

(out of 4)

Compton If the years of blown-out Detox release dates hadn’t already killed your hopes of ever hearing another new Dr. Dre album, Apple’s $3-billion purchase of the Beats by Dre brand last year seemed a definitive nail in the coffin. Instead, though, Dre gave up on Detox and, apparently inspired by his involvement in the forthcoming NWA biopic Straight Outta Compton, knocked out a different record altogether in the (relative) blink of an eye. Maybe not overthinking was the key, because the dense, thrilling and thoroughly re-energized Comptonis far, far better than we had any right to expect only the third Dr. Dre solo album in 23 years to be.

Not that this one’s a non-stop hit parade like 1999’s 2001 or 1992’s The Chronic. Compton is a daunting barrage of buzzing, chattering sound and cinematic ambition and far too crowded with ideas and voices — from old reliables such as Ice Cube and Xzibit to youngbloods such as Kendrick Lamar, who slays his guest spots on “Genocide” and “Deep Water” — to properly digest in the short time since it turned up a day ahead of release to stream on Apple Music this past Thursday. And while “Just Another Day” or the altogether Gfunky Snoop Dogg feature “Satisfaction” boom with comforting, oldschool-Dre familiarity, most of this album is a cantankerous, heaving, combative thing that sees Dre taking his beats and soundscapes in ever rougher and more jarring directions.

When he raps, Dre sounds hoarser and harder than ever and the mood of the whole thing is relentlessly frenetic and fired-up, climaxing with one of the most bug-eyed Eminem verses in recent memory on “Medicine Man.”

In the end, Compton plays like a series of blurred urban vignettes witnessed through a passing car window, so perhaps it’s fitting that it opens with one of those studio-logo fanfares that typically precede a theatrical film. But as films go, it’s definitely one worth repeat viewing.