This album is not Kanye's best, but that's a high bar set, think it's still largely very good. Between this and Chance though, seems FLY'm off base on Chicago artists this year (Chief Keef and Lil Durk both have some fantastic projects thus far) when compared to critical opinion. But I didn't come to it for Christian themes, and largely find those to be the weakest parts. The strongest songs and moments come from when Kanye is placing himself within that conversation, felt like ye functioned similarly. Either way, still (unofficially) the album of the year in the sense that, officially, it seems unlikely there's actually an album better than Charli, unless I take a harder turn on A Death Race For Love by the end of the year, so officially this is the third best album of the year..
Bonus Kanye "Power" Rankings:
1. MBDTF
2. Y
Tier Break
3. TCD
4. y
5. TLOP
Tier Break
6. JIK
7. LR
8. G
Tier Break
9. 8&H
Depends on the day if I put My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy above Yeezus though.
EDIT: A number of Kanye's earlier songs do have multiple writing credits, haven't looked at the lines for this one, but I feel like if the lyrics took a step back, which I will concede slightly but not to the extent chatter I've heard seems to indicate, it may be because he's taken a more central role to the writing here. Feel like, musically, the beats on this album are largely fantastic, and his lyricism is still there. Also, I wouldn't say being clever is gone, we're only a little over a year removed from the last two bars on "I Love It" which are, undeniably, the shit.