Isaiah Rashad’s latest LP may be titled “The House Is Burning,” but from the sound of these 16 tracks, the empire he established stands stronger than ever before. In early May, the LP’s lead single “Lay Wit It” partially quenched the insatiable thirst of Rashad’s fans, who were milking every last detail of his 2016 release, “The Sun’s Tirade.” With the record’s release on July 30, their cups runneth over.

With its marriage of starts and stops and its utilization of space delivered as something bumpable and easily palettable, the production could write itself a three page piece. It is without a doubt quality work. What really takes the cake on this release, however, is where Rashad is as an artist now and where his new life after his five year hiatus will take him next.

I gave this LP the once over while sitting on my parents’ porch in Nashville, Tennessee — just a two-hour hop and skip from Rashad’s hometown: Chattanooga. I was introduced to “The House Is Burning” as a violent storm raged on, and it was evident this habitant of Southern paradise knew something about both the physical and mental downpours in this LP.

After a series of rough patches left the once-flying Rashad on the floor, he sobered up and is back even better than he left off. This record is proof.

Rashad told Rolling Stone the title of the work is “a scenario that you either can lay down with the flames or die from trying to hold on to material things and shit like that, or you can get out in a timely manner. And if it all burns down, you are still going to try to figure it out, right? Because if not, you might as well just lay in that motherfucker. You got to start over.”

The meat of the LP isn’t a linear rehashing of Rashad’s journey for all eyes to see, but we definitely hear it in parts. Take the first track, “Darkseid,” for example. While hanging onto the intro and getting lost in the circular drag of it all, the line “My partner know I just camе back, see, I done been dead for real” snuck up on me, speaking on Rashad’s past addictions.

He is a purveyor of the whole LP’s creation. Doesn’t one have to be when they cram 16 tracks into 48 minutes? In this age of gluttony, singles get sent to the top, and records often become memorialized only by their singles and nothing else — disgraceful. If you are the type of lazy listener who picks a song up and calls it a day, I can’t stop you. But, I insist that “The House Is Burning” is a record you must listen to front to back and side to side, or else you’ll miss it.

High points on the LP can be found everywhere for every reason. With oodles of collaborators in the mix, there’s no growing tired of a singular sound.

“Rip YOUNG” threw me into a dance, and the percussion continued the groove when “Claymore” kicked in. Suddenly, I was in the midst of waves, riding confidently over the water, floating now in a calm where our heads never go under. I hopped out of the wake and shook myself dry with the next track, “Headshots.” The wailing vocals that sit in the back took me in slow motion, but the forefront of the song felt like a deliberate drive down Sunset Boulevard in a parallel universe where there’s no traffic in sight. It’s my favorite song on the LP, and it maintains a stickiness about it. Even with those spurts of bass interrupting it like a smooth cocking of a gun in your dad’s favorite western, it doesn’t lose its density.

On top of this, the horn outro is plain sexy. We hear a tease of it again later on the record in “Don’t Shoot,” but the two part taste of the saxophone left my mouth watering for more when the record finished.

I could carry on and on and on, but I could do no justice to the memory-laden closing track that Rashad leaves us with: “HB2U.”

“Is there a Heaven?” a little boy asked. “Yes,” a soft father figure voice said. “How do you know that?” the little boy continued. “You don’t,” he replied over a whimsical chime, starting “HB2U.” Chills from less than 10 seconds in — that’s an instant replay.

If Rashad was Joni Mitchell, “HB2U” would be his “Cactus Tree” — a song that exhibits an understanding of the self that many of us will never know. “The House Is Burning” was well worth the wait. It’s a record bigger than the artist, and the perfect example of art for redemption’s sake.