Don Toliver released his long-awaited album “OCTANE” on January 30, 2026, marking his fifth studio album. The album shifts into a more of a relaxed tone compared to his previous release “HARDSTONE PSYCHO”, creating a new sound for him to explore with this album and potentially becoming a diverging point for his place in the music industry. 

While I commend his departure from the usual sound of production he does, OCTANE falls flat with both the vocals and writing, with most songs not standing out and just blending into one giant song. I found this album to take very little risks in its sound aswell, making the features even stay on course, giving no variety between each song. 

There are a multitude of features within this album, with Yeat, Rema, Travis Scott, Teezo Touchdown, and SahBabii being listed on this album. Known for their more aggressive style of music, Yeat and Travis Scott blend into this album and does not stand out, sounding different from their style of music. This is evident on the songs Rendezvous (featuring Yeat) and Rosary (featuring Travis Scott), with both featured artists not adding anything special to the songs, It keeps this trend up throughout the album, giving this album a worse and worse image in my head as every song passed by, as it felt lazily made. 

The album, which was hyped up to become something different and try something new for Toliver, ended up stale and bland. Nothing new came from this album, as what was put out was the same brand of music with the same writing. I left off feeling disappointed from this album, as I had higher expectations. I wish he tried something new with his sound outside of the more relaxed production, as the potential is there, but its left unrealized.