In an era when networked access to information is nearly universal and wearing influences on your sleeve is normalized, it often feels like everything's been done. Which begs the questions: What's the point of creating? Does the world need another still life of fruit? Another film about love? Does the world need another melody? On Raw Honey, his second album as Drugdealer, Michael Collins colors these existential conundrums with lush arrangements, memetic melodies, and a vulnerable tunefulness that tries to make sense of self-doubt and connected loneliness in our shared simulacra.

Raw Honey continues where The End of Comedy left off, with Collins once again leading an ace crew of collaborators to coalesce the spirit of Drugdealer's classically modern pop. Built on the foundation of a creative partnership between Collins, Sasha Winn (vocals) and Shags Chamberlain (bass, production), Drugdealer is more a collective than band. Raw Honey features contributions of Josh Da Costa (drums), Jackson MacIntosh (guitar), Danny Garcia (guitar), Michael Long (lead guitar), and Benjamin Schwab (backing vocals, guitar, organ, piano, wurlitzer), as well as guest vocalists like country balladeer Dougie Poole ("Wild Motion"), Harley Hill-Richmond ("Lonely"), and frequent collaborator Natalie Mering (Weyes Blood) whose dulcet tones sing low before soaring on "Honey," a track as silky as the nectar itself.

Throughout, Collins and crew display their influences as a new tapestry, one woven with the recycled fibers from thousands of tapestries that have colored our collective listening histories. Collins has an ear for penning numbers that would sound as at home on Classic Rock radio as they would at Zebulon in Los Angeles. Rather than hiding behind a curtain or casually sidestepping AOR tropes, Raw Honey adheres to a modern kind of creation – one that cultivates influences and espouses reverence. An honest totem, Raw Honey isn't tangled up in social norms, with Collins preferring to air his self-doubt as a northern star to guide like-minded people wherever they need to go.