The actually-far-beyond-third album to explore the surprise depths of indie rap’s favorite O’Doul’s aficionado, Serengeti’s Kenny Dennis III takes the essence of his bushy-stached sorta-tulpa into another headspace. Where previous albums might’ve depicted him as somewhere between artistically frustrated and domestically content about his washed peaked-in-the-‘90s status, Kenny’s lingering regrets about the failure of his rap dreams are reignited by a homecoming appearance from his friend Ders (played in skits by comedian Anders Holm), who Kenny attempts to rope into a retro-hip-house project called “Perfecto.” From there on out, comeback-seeking Kenny starts ego tripping on tour, his defensiveness and his deluded tough-guy martial arts posturing start to betray his frustrations — a scatterbrained narcissism (“Dz Goes On”) and financial desperation (“Lose Big”) compounded by a sense of betrayal from both family (“Tanya T,” in which Kenny’s troubled younger brother turns police snitch) and friends (Ders abandons Perfecto after he gets a shot at a plum role in a Diff’rent Strokes prequel series in “Mr. Drummond”). If that makes Kenny sound more like a sad sack than a lovable goof, that’s by design; it’s like Serengeti’s affection for embodying the character has been complicated by the knowledge that Kenny doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who has a total handle on himself. Thankfully the psych-inflected Odd Nosdam beats make the tense atmosphere pull you in rather than push you away, building a ruminative griminess that crests into majesty as the concluding cut “Tickled Pink” gives Kenny’s reflective self-assessment a beautiful (if ultimately temporary) finality.