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You Forgot It In People is one of the most beloved and enduring indie albums of this century. The 2002 project isn’t celebrating a big milestone anniversary this year, but Broken Social Scene are celebrating regardless with Anthems: A Celebration Of Broken Social Scene’s You Forgot It In People.

For the project, they recruited a bunch of artists to contribute covers. Today (April 24), they’ve shared Maggie Rogers and Sylvan Esso’s rendition of the classic “Anthems For A Seventeen Year-Old Girl.”

Rogers says of the song:

“‘Anthems’ is one of those songs that fundamentally changed my life. There’s something about the lyrical repetition that functions as a sort of mantra within the song and it made me understand at a very early point in my creative life that music could be a form of meditation. Broken Social Scene has long been one of my all-time favorite bands and covering it with my dear friends Nick and Amelia from Sylvan Esso was an absolute joy beam dream.”

Sylvan Esso adds, “It was a joy to cover this beautiful song with Maggie — we all grew up loving this record — to be asked to cover ‘Anthems…’ together was an honor and led to a truly lovely time.”

Also involved in the project are Hovvdy, Miya Folick, Hand Habits, The Weather Station, Mdou Moctar, Serpentwithfeet, and others.

Check out Rogers and Sylvan Esso’s cover above. Below, find the album’s cover art and tracklist.

Anthems: A Celebration Of Broken Social Scene’s You Forgot It In People Album Cover Artwork

Anthems: A Celebration Of Broken Social Scene’s You Forgot It In People Tracklist

1. Ouri — “Capture The Flag”
2. Hovvdy — “KC Accidental”
3. Toro y Moi — “Stars And Sons”
4. Miya Folick and Hand Habits — “Almost Crimes”
5. The Weather Station — “Looks Just Like The Sun”
6. Mdou Moctar and Mikey Coltun — “Pacific Theme”
7. Maggie Rogers & Sylvan Esso — “Anthems For A Seventeen Year-Old Girl”
8. Middle Kids — “Cause = Time”
9. Benny Sings — “Late Nineties Bedroom Rock For The Missionaries”
10. Spirit Of The Beehive — “Shampoo Suicide”
11. Serpentwithfeet — “Lover’s Spit”
12. Sessa — “Ainda Sou Seu Moleque”
13. Babygirl — “Pitter Patter Goes My Heart”

Anthems: A Celebration Of Broken Social Scene’s You Forgot It In People is out 6/6 via Arts & Crafts. Find more information here.

So far, Quavo‘s filmography is on the lighter side. The “Legends” rapper has appeared in episodes in Atlanta, Black-ish, and Narcos: Mexico, and he voices a talking shoe in the animated movie Sneaks. But Quavo is certain that among rappers, he’ll be remembered as one of the greats, if not the greatest.

When approached by TMZ about whether he can become the best rapper-turned-actor ever, Quavo replied, “I’m a great guy. Yes, sir.” What about Tupac Shakur? Or Oscar nominee Queen Latifah? Or Oscar winner Will Smith? “They can’t f*ck with me,” he said. Ice Cube, too.

There’s a lot more that went unnamed: Donald Glover, Method Man and Redman, Mos Def, Eminem, Ludacris. Just not Vanilla Ice in Cool As Ice.

One of Quavo’s other roles was in 2022’s Savage Salvation, which also starred Robert De Niro. The acting legend doesn’t own a Shrek phone case but he is aware of Migos. “I said what’s up to him,” Quavo told Billboard. “I told him I said a line in one of my new songs about the trip I just took, and he was just like, ‘For real. M-I-G-O-S, right?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, he’s finna go home and look me up.’ It was too hard. I couldn’t wait to tell my Mom Dukes that I’m gonna be on the screen and kicked it with him. He’s a nice dude.”

A month ago, Ari Lennox released her latest single, “Soft Girl Era.” While her previous releases were credited as being released on both Dreamville Records and Interscope Records, looking on Spotify, this one just says Interscope.

Well, it looks like this really is the end of Lennox’s relationship with the J. Cole label: TMZ has reportedly confirmed that Lennox is no longer a Dreamville artist and will release her music only on Interscope going forward. The publication also notes that “all signs point to a completely amicable split.” So far, neither Lennox nor Dreamville have addressed the apparent break-up.

Lennox fans know that she has long had issues with Dreamville. In 2022, she declared she wanted to be dropped from the label and she shared a similar sentiment last year, saying, “I wish I had a label that wouldn’t have me out here trying to explain why I need advertisement, why I need advertisement for my record. […] So, I just want to be released, and it’s just that simple. And I’m tired of being nice, and I was trying to do everything the right way, but now I’m pissed. This was my final straw. I have communicated effectively and no one cares, so now we’re here in toxic-ass social media world, or this is how I’m deciding to express myself in a toxic way. But, we’re here, and I don’t know how else to get it through people’s thick head. Like, stop playing with me.”

Haim played their first show in nearly two years on Wednesday. The group performed a 14-song set at The Bellwether in Los Angeles, California, and shared that they have a new album, I Quit, coming out on June 20. Expect an official announcement later this “fun week.”

Haim brought out burgeoning pop star Addison Rae at the concert for the live debut of “Blood On The Streets.” Rolling Stone reports that “Rae didn’t join on the vocals; she just danced around as Haim sang.” The “Headphones On” singer also filmed a TikTok with Danielle, Alana, and Este, who are wearing shirts bearing the cover artwork for Rae’s “first and last album,” Addison.

In a recent interview with i-d, Alana said I Quit is the “the closest we’ve ever gotten to how we wanted to sound.” She continued, “Coming into this album, it feels like all three of us are really in tune with what we want, and we’re not f*cking afraid to say like — I’m sorry, now I’m two beers in — if I want to f*ck somebody, I’ll f*ck in the way that I want to. I’m not gonna feel judged by it. If I wanna go on dates, if I wanna do whatever… Do whatever feels good to you.”

You can watch concert footage of Rae with Haim here.

A couple days ago, some fans got an early taste of Lorde’s new song, “What Was That,” when she performed it at a New York City pop-up event. Now, it’s the rest of the world’s turn, as today (April 24), Lorde has officially released the song.

Lorde sings on the chorus, “MDMA in the back garden, blow our pupils up / We kissed for hours straight, well, baby, what was that? / I remember saying then, ‘This is the best cigarette of my life’ / Well, I want you just like that / Indio haze, we’re in a sandstorm, and it knocks me out / I didn’t know then that you’d never be enough for… / Since I was seventeen, I gave you everything / Now, we wake from a dream / Well, baby, what was that?”

Lorde hasn’t announced an album yet, but a press release says the song “signals the dawn of a striking new era for Lorde.”

This comes shortly after Lorde said in an audio message shared with fans, “I just wanted to say hi because everything is about to change and these are really the last moments where it’s just us, which is crazy [laughs]. But so right, I’m so ready. I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to say that, but I am. I’m so thankful for your patience. I’ve felt your love, I’ve felt you right there. And yeah, this is gonna be crazy. You have no idea [laughs]. OK, I love you so much. I’ll talk to you soon.”

Watch the “What Was That” video above.

This year’s Oscars were largely swept by Sean Baker’s Anora, although the full winners list reflected an abundance of nominations for Conclave with one win for Best Adapted Screenplay.

The Ralph Fiennes-starring film revolves around a dramatized version of the infighting between the Catholic Church’s leaders as they lock themselves in the Vatican to select a new pope. And as you are no doubt aware, the highly secretive selection procedure (known as a papal conclave) is now currently underway following the death of Pope Francis, and this has people now wondering where the Best Picture nominee can be viewed at home.

Where Can You Stream Conclave?

The Focus Feature movie is available to stream on Prime Video/Amazon (at this link).

Ahead of awards season last year, Director Edward Berger explained to Gold Derby decisions on the film’s design, which included how “You want to represent the the sterility of this conclave, to represent that you’re being locked away from the world.” He then added, “We wanted to design sterile worlds where they’re sequestered, that feels almost like a jail.”

Now, the world awaits the papal conclaves decision, but for now, you can stream that movie to get a feel for the debate within.

Welcome to SNX DLX, your weekly roundup of the best sneakers to hit the internet. This week we’ve got an even mix of collabs — Nigo with Nike, Action Bronson with New Balance, Brain Dead with Adidas — and coveted signature basketball sneakers, including the latest from Kawhi Leonard, LeBron James, and a BRED Jordan 11. So if you’re one of the rare few who likes big brand collaborations and the dopest signature basketball sneakers, we feel sorry for your wallet!

With the way online raffles and limited supply work, you’d never be so lucky (or unlucky?) to be able to cop all of these in a single week. On the bright side, you’re bound to catch a “W” on at least one of these releases this week. Even if you end up landing on something that isn’t your top pick, there isn’t a single dud in this week’s lineup, so take the win!

Let’s dive into this week’s best kicks.

NIGO x Nike Air Force 3 Low Black and White

Price: $150

Japanese streetwear legend Nigo has teamed up with Nike for a nostalgia-mining take on the Air Force 3. The sneaker looks to the lost art of crate-digging (when hip-hop producers and DJs would deep dive into discount record bins for hidden gems) and features a design that combines metallic accents with embossed leather, printed insoles and some bling for good measure.

Elements of this sneaker resemble the look of vinyl records, complete with a vinyl graphic on the tongue and a specifically designed box. It’s a tribute to a bygone era of hip-hop and a nostalgic treat for anyone who came up listening to ‘90s and early ‘00s rap music.

The NIGO x Nike Air Force 3 Low Black and White is set to drop on April 24th at 7:00 AM PST for a retail price of $150. Pick up a pair via the Nike SNKRS app.

Action Bronson x New Balance Made in USA 990v6 Amazonia

Price: $219.99

Last week, Action Bronson’s latest hit a limited release run that sold out instantly. If you caught the “L,” you have another chance come Friday. The Amazonia sports a lightweight mesh upper with synthetic details and nubuck overlays, with a Baklava branded tongue, and reflective accents for enhanced visibility.

It’s one of the best sneakers to drop all year, so this will be a definite pick-up for us!

The Action Bronson x New Balance Made in USA 990v6 Amazonia is set to drop on April 25th at 7:00 AM PST for a retail price of $219.99. Pick up a pair at New Balance or aftermarket sites like GOAT and Flight Club.

New Balance Kawhi IV Team Sky Blue

Price: $159.99

Just in time for spring, New Balance is dropping a new colorway for the Kawhi IV that is to date, the brightest this silhouette has ever looked. The sneaker features a streamlined mesh upper with synthetic overlays, and cable loop speed lacing.

For those into nerdy stats, the Kawhi IV is outfitted with an Energy Arc sole that maximizes energy return via a carbon fiber plate and midsole voids.

The New Balance Kawhi IV Team Sky Blue is set to drop on April 25th at 7:00 AM PST for a retail price of $159.99. Pick up a pair at New Balance.

Nike LeBron XXI Prime 96 White and Fire Red

Price: $200

The LeBron XXI Prime 96 White and Fire Red is a case of game recognizing game. Inspired by legendary football coach Deion Sanders (who was in his own right a very talented hoops player that almost went pro), the XXI Prime 96 sports a leather upper with an iconic Fire Red colorway, gold embroidered swoosh branding and accents, and a midfoot strap for a locked-in feel.

It’s one of LeBron’s finest designs in one of Nike’s best color combos.

The Nike LeBron XXI Prime 96 White and Fire Red is set to drop on April 25th at 7:00 AM PST for a retail price of $200. Pick up a pair via the Nike SNKRS app or aftermarket sites like GOAT and Flight Club.

Adidas Forest Hills Brain Dead Core Black/Cream White

Price: $150

The Los Angeles streetwear brand Brain Dead is linking up with Adidas for a new take on the hugely underappreciated Forest Hills silhouette. This tennis shoe was originally released in the late ‘70s and featured a lightweight design, enhanced ventilation, and an overall dope shape.

The Brain Dead take sports a premium hairy suede upper with leather stripes, fuzzy laces, co-branded accents, and two two-tone colorways. The sneaker will be dropping alongside a matching apparel collection.

The Adidas Forest Hill Brain Dead in Core Black and Cream White is set to drop on April 25th at 7:00 AM PST for a retail price of $150. Pick up a pair via the Adidas CONFIRMED app.

Air Jordan 11 Low BRED

Price: $190

Even if you’re not a hardcore Jordan head, this is likely the drop you’re eyeing the most this week, and we don’t blame you! Simply put, the Jordan 11 BRED is straight up legendary sh*t. One of the greatest colorways of one of the greatest sneakers of all time.

The sneaker sports a premium patent leather upper in a classic black, red, and white colorway. If you need a brief history lesson as to why this sneaker is so coveted — it’s the pair Jordan wore during his championship ’96 run. It’s like wearing a piece of history on your feet!

The Air Jordan 11 BRED is set to drop on April 26th at 7:00 AM PST for a retail price of $190. Pick up a pair via the Nike SNKRS app or aftermarket sites like GOAT and Flight Club.

Disclaimer: While all of the products recommended here were chosen independently by our editorial staff, Uproxx may receive payment to direct readers to certain retail vendors who are offering these products for purchase.

If you stare long enough at Alex Garland’s filmography, you might convince yourself you’re glimpsing the future. His art has a pesky habit of precognizing life. Soul-destroying fascinations with A.I., plagues thrusting first-world countries into societal collapse, resource-mining in space, civil war erupting in not-so-distant dystopias – some of Garland’s best work paints him as a thinking man’s fortune teller stationed behind a monitor instead of a crystal ball, divining beautifully wrought, frustratingly vague cinematic harbingers of our collective doom. That they’re often right is what makes them all the more interesting. And, sometimes, polarizing. In a way, that is by his own design.

“I think it’s important to be challenging sometimes,” Garland tells UPROXX after his latest effort, Warfare, outperformed expectations (with critics and at the box office).

The film is an exercise in reminiscence therapy, an attempt to build a memory from scratch from the movie’s co-director, Ray Mendoza, for his friend and platoon member, Elliot Miller, whose recollection of an early aughts mission-gone-wrong in Ramadi, Iraq, was blown to bits by an IED. Both Garland and Mendoza have been refreshingly frank in their approach to the heavily-trodden territory of Middle Eastern conflict – and our country’s role in it. The two met while working on Garland’s Civil War, the experience of filming the movie’s climactic final act inspiring both to launch an experiment in hyperrealism that, hopefully, would more accurately reflect the brutal reality Mendoza and his fellow soldiers were living during the U.S.’ War on Terror.

“Why not tell our story?” Mendoza says of his desire to replay a trauma that still haunts him on the big screen. “We have short memories. People are already forgetting, and it’s only been 20 years.” Even though the film is rooted in past events, it feels undeniably current, a reflection of our growing global turmoil and knee-jerk resolutions of violence that prove we haven’t learned much in the past two decades. In that way, it’s a quintessential Garland film, one that asks more questions than it provides answers.

With the release of Warfare, we took a look at some of Garland’s most thought-provoking films to see how the director has continued to challenge audiences across genres, forcing us to reckon with the future before it arrives.

28 Days Later

The streets of London are deserted. A man crosses the normally bustling Westminster bridge alone. Headlines warn of a new virus strain spreading rampantly amongst civilians. This is the beginning of Garland’s screenplay for a Danny Boyle-directed horror movie that would revive the zombie genre. It’s also a snapshot of the recent COVID-19 pandemic and the global lockdowns that reshaped our way of life, if only for a little while.

Of course, Hollywood has churned out plenty of outbreak movies that imagine the end-times by way of cell-destroying pathogens, but Garland’s version felt particularly disturbing. Not only did he correctly predict the resurgence of the undead – on-screen at least – but he also anticipated how quickly humanity could turn on itself when systemic routines were disrupted and we were left to self-govern our worst impulses. A rage virus turning healthy individuals into mindless cannibals is terrifying, sure, but even more frightening? The uninfected monsters who survive.

Sunshine

Another Danny Boyle – Alex Garland production with Cillian Murphy centered amongst the chaos, this sci-fi thriller sent Garland’s premonitive powers to space, imagining a future gone cold thanks to a dying sun. A plausible threat, one ironically at odds with our current climate reality, the movie still makes an interesting case about the roles science and faith play in the preservation of life. Does fundamentalism or free thought win the day? Do we determine our own fate or does hubris condemn us to only believing we do? If both religion and theory are unproven, which should govern us?

It’s weighty stuff to sit with in a zero-gravity pressurized tin can millions of miles from home, but even more fascinating is Garland’s take on the eco-consequences of the film. In talking with GQ last year, the director gave his read on the sticky moral dilemma of conservation, saying, “For me, Sunshine was a story about a world that’s dying and somebody saying, ‘By saving the world temporarily at this moment, all you’re doing is delaying the horror of extinction to your ancestors, and that’s not fair on them. We should take that horror ourselves, and not hand it on, as it were, to our great-great, great, great-grandchildren,’ because you are going to reach the same point.”

Ex Machina

Garland’s directorial debut for A24 sparked cinema’s renewed interest in artificial intelligence, eschewing robocops and replicants for a tightly-shot Turing test with terrifying implications. The film sees Domhnall Gleeson’s promising young programmer Caleb accept an invitation from an ego-centric tech mogul, Nathan (Oscar Isaac), to spend time at his villa observing his latest creation – an eerily-human bot named Ava (Alicia Vikander).

The experiment quickly derails as Isaac’s puppetmaster becomes more unhinged, Gleeson’s idealist naively infatuated, and Vikander’s intelligent humanoid even more adept at manipulating the fragility of human emotions. Plenty of sci-fi flicks have guessed that, given the chance, A.I. would turn on its human creators, but few have done it so masterfully as Garland’s. In Ava and to an extent, Nathan, we see human autonomy reduced to data points and search histories while online behaviors are wielded like weapons and the core elements that make us human are distilled into predictive algorithms.

Annihilation

An adaptation that strays far enough from its source material (the book by Jeff VanderMeer) to give us new, confounding metaphysical mysteries to solve, Annihilation is some of Garland’s most fascinating work. It follows a group of scientists embarking on an exploratory mission into a quarantined area known only as The Shimmer, where alien life has metastasized the landscape in unrecognizable and nightmarish ways.

It’s a film with kaleidoscopic themes that change depending on which light you view it from. Is it a metaphor for cancer, suicide, or the human instinct for self-destruction? Is it a smoke signal, warning us of nature’s ability to reclaim control? Or is it something even more timely? An argument that civilizations decompose just as easily as human bodies, that immersing ourselves in hostile environments can warp our minds and birth unrecognizable versions of ourselves?

Men

One of Garland’s more divisive films, Men sees Jessie Buckley play a woman named Harper who, still reeling from her husband’s death, removes herself to an idyllic country house – an Eden of sorts where she can grieve and contend with her guilt. Except her sabbatical of solitude is constantly interrupted by men – overly accommodating landlords, pervy vicars, and naked stalkers brutally birthing deformed doppelgangers. It’s a disturbing fever dream of a film, one that touches on everything from sexism in religion to toxic masculinity as it builds a nightmare in which women can’t seem to escape the abuse and malevolent influence of men, no matter how hard they try.

Devs

Garland’s first foray into television aired out his anxieties over our collective deification of the Silicon Valley sect. It follows Nick Offerman’s Forest, a tech titan building a quantum computer that allows him to play out the past and the future. Themes of grief, memory, and the limitations of man run rampant in the eight-episode series, but Garland made it clear that Devs was primarily born from his concern that society was attaching too much importance to the tech sector and the figureheads in charge. “Increasingly I was feeling that they’re not geniuses— they’re entrepreneurs who coincidentally are working in tech rather than milk production,” Garland told GQ. “We are ascribing qualities to them—or they’re assuming those qualities and believing they contain them themselves—on the basis of not much evidence.”

Civil War

Unfortunately, the premise of an American collapse via an incompetent commander-in-chief propped up by fanatical supporters and fascist-leaning “yes” men isn’t as forward-thinking as Garland might have intended. Perhaps that’s why Civil War, last year’s thrilling dystopian drama starring Kristen Dunst, Wagner Moura, and Cailee Spaeny as war journalists documenting the atrocities committed in the name of patriotism, seemed to trigger outrage amongst so many. Garland was intentional in predicting a violent future born of our inability to compromise and understand one another without offering any comforting prescription for such a fatal prognosis meaning audiences were left to sit with their uncertainty minus the kind of reassuring handholding a lesser film might have offered. The film also marks the first collaboration between Garland and Mendoza, who credits its final scene – a harrowing tactical takedown that plays as a one-take shot – as proof he could trust the director with telling a more personal war story: his own.

Warfare

Set in Ramadi, Iraq circa 2006, Warfare boasts a cast of next-wave stars fully committed to the tight, story-telling restraints Mendoza and Garland choose to operate under. Woven from individual threads of memory, dictated meticulously by Mendoza and his platoon members, the film drops audiences into the kind of every day, life-and-death monotony that can so easily twist and distort a soldier’s reality once they return home. Mendoza told us that he’d rather “die with it” than hand off something so personal to a director using the genre as a stepping stone for greater ambitions, which is why Garland felt like the perfect fit. In tossing out the Hollywood rulebook, trashing overdone tropes, and sapping any sentimentality from the action, the central mission of the film is unremarkable — and all the more devastating because of it. By refusing to tack on a message to the violence, Garland and Mendoza have created something timeless, a capsule to be buried and unearthed whenever we need a reminder of the futility of war and how patriotic idolatry hurts those stationed on the front lines.

There’s a lot to unpack in Killer Mike’s freestyle over Travis Scott’s hit song “FE!N.” There’s the obvious, which is that Travis recently put in an appearance at WrestleMania, and as Mike put it on Twitter, “I woke up with ‘Mania on my Mind. This beat is so cold I had to kill it.” But, as happens so often with both rap and wrestling, there are a few layers to unpack.

Professional wrestling can often be a tangled web of lore, which could easily turn a neophyte’s brain inside out with its convoluted twists and turns. And, as has so often been said before, rap often follows similar contortions, which makes this post especially fun to write.

So, yeah, “FE!N” has been the official anthem of WrestleMania 41, appearing throughout its promotion for most of the past year (much to some fans’ chagrin). But it’s also the song that many of Scott’s fans believed should have put him in the running for a rap Grammy the year Killer Mike swept the rap categories, taking home Best Rap Album for Michael, and Best Rap Song and Best Rap Performance for “Scientists & Engineers.”

His wins incensed some Travis Scott fans, who protested that they didn’t even know who Killer Mike was (which only made them look bad). Most of them changed their minds after actually checking his stuff out, and Mike even admitted to admiring Travis later on.

Ironically, Travis now finds himself in a similar position, with many longtime wrestling fans expressing their resentment of the rapper’s intervention in the Sunday main event match between Cody Rhodes and John Cena, distracting Rhodes just long enough for Cena to gain the upper hand and steal his history-making 17th championship. So, yeah, the marks are out on Travis for both kayfabe reasons and real-life fatigue, as his constant appearances in the ring have felt much less organic than, say, Bad Bunny’s run in 2023.

Still, it doesn’t seem we’ll be free of Scott’s reign of terror anytime soon. At least we get this great Killer Mike freestyle out of it. Hopefully, the WWE will notice and give us Scott vs. Mike in the ring and not just on the mic — now that, I’ll pay to see, twice.

If you’re not familiar with Jollibee’s game, you’re seriously missing out. The restaurant is the largest fast food chain in the Philippines and is making a pretty active play for the US market, with 80 stores nationwide across 14 different states, most of which are currently in California. The restaurant is mostly known for its fried chicken and spaghetti (a perfect combination of foods, don’t knock it until you try it), but has been branching out with chicken sandwiches, and this year, cheeseburgers.

Even though we’re big Jollibee fans, when the cheeseburgers were first announced, our interest was admittedly pretty low. It’s not that we didn’t have faith in Jollibee, but generally when fast food brands do both chicken sandwiches and cheeseburgers, they rarely knock it out of the park with both dishes (Wendy’s and Shake Shack being the rare exceptions).

But — spoilers for the full review — these cheeseburgers are f*cking delicious. They’re so damn good that we feel like we need to re-do our cheeseburger ranking to properly place these. We’ll get to that eventually, but first let’s talk about what makes these burgers a must-eat.

Jollibee Angus Cheeseburger Review

Currently, Jollibee has three different burger builds — the Angus Cheeseburger, Angus Deluxe Burger, and Angus Aloha Burger. The base cheeseburger features a certified Angus beef patty smash seared on the grill and topped with American cheese, thick-cut pickles, thinly sliced red onions, ketchup, and signature sauce. The Deluxe features the same build plus tomato and lettuce, and the Aloha Burger ditches the pickles and onions and adds grilled pineapple, bacon, and Jollibee’s Aloha dressing.

Since the Cheeseburger and Deluxe are essentially the same build, I skipped the former and ordered the Deluxe, as well as the Aloha Burger.

When I bit into the Deluxe I was surprised to find a thick patty of sumptuous beef that practically melted in my mouth. This burger is juicy and perfectly salted, with nice ripe produce and a soft buttery bun. This burger is a leap above the top of the line burgers at places like Jack in the Box, McDonald’s, and Burger King, easily.

What stood out to me was the signature sauce. The sauce is much less tangy than a typical burger sauce, with that tang replaced by sweet floral notes that are almost honey-like. It adds a savory umami quality to each bite that had me sufficiently addicted by the burger’s end.

With how much I enjoyed the Deluxe, I was pretty amped for the Aloha — but it missed the mark for me. Don’t get me wrong, it’s good, but I think the Deluxe dunks on it. My main issue with the Aloha was the grilled pineapple, which was a bit too thin (and not charred enough) to really stand out, so instead of adding a noticeable fruity tang note, it just sort of made my burger taste a bit off. The bacon was also undercooked to the point that it was chewy. These are easily tweakable ingredients though, so it could just be a case of quality control.

But despite being disappointed by the Aloha, I still have to hand it to Jollibee on the burger’s Aloha Dressing. I’m not sure what is in this stuff, but it tastes like a simplified version of banana ketchup. If you’ve never had banana ketchup, it’s not nearly as bad as it sounds. It tastes strikingly similar to ketchup, but with a sweeter, less umami-focused finish. It’s like ketchup, without the tang!

It adds an interesting fruity-meets-savory quality to the burger that makes it truly unique. It’s rare that we get a fast food cheeseburger that tastes miles apart from the competition, but Jollibee has done it. While the Aloha wasn’t our favorite, it was definitely the most unique and interesting burger we’ve had all year (take that Shake Shack).

The Bottom Line:

Last year Jollibee didn’t even make a cheeseburger, and this year they’re making one of the best in all of fast food. The Angus Cheeseburgers are worth an immediate trip to your nearest Jollibee. We place this one neck and neck with Wendy’s (maybe a touch higher) and leaps and bounds better than McDonalds, Jack in the Box, Burger King, and other drive-thru assisted big burger chains.