T-Pain's third studio album won't surprise fans of the Tallahassee-based hip-hop maestro: if you've heard any of his previous hits — or any of his numerous productions for acts including Chris Brown, Flo Rida, and Lil Mama — you'll instantly recognize the familiar AutoTune jams here.
Repetition, though, is the prerogative of the unique — especially when the truly unique is also the highly lucrative. So if Thr33 Ringz fails to shock, consider also that it fails to disappoint. In fact, it might contain T-Pain's single finest accomplishment to date: "Can't Believe It," a mesmerizing collaboration with Lil Wayne in which Pain manages to rhyme "put you in a mansion" with "somewhere in Wisconsin," and Wayne succeeds in sounding even more like an alien than he does on Tha Carter III. (According to the Internet, these two are reportedly at work on a joint album under the handle T-Wayne.)
Other highlights exist, but you don't need me to tell you about them — the radio will be taking care of that for the next year or so.