Shatter the Standards

• Album Review: early life crisis by Nettspend | Shatter the Standards
An 18-year-old from Richmond pours lean, Percs, and ketamine into his debut. The beats are better than he is, but the kid keeps slipping.

• Album Review: Atlanta by Gnarls Barkley | Shatter the Standards
Gnarls Barkley’s farewell names its dead, prays without expecting an answer, and rides the train until it stops. With the help of Danger Mouse, CeeLo bought enough life to fill a eulogy.

• Album Review: Strictly 4 the Scythe by Denzel Curry & The Scythe | Shatter the Standards
Denzel Curry reassembles the crew format he left at eighteen. The Scythe talks enormous shit for twenty minutes over beats thick enough to walk on that pays tribute to the South.

• Album Review: BE VERY AFRAID (Vol. 1) by Chase B | Shatter the Standards
A well-connected DJ-producer’s debut mixtape has plenty of famous friends but no clear reason to exist without them.

• Album Review: My Ego Told Me To by Leigh-Anne | Shatter the Standards
On her first record without Little Mix, Leigh-Anne Pinnock proves she can write about dread and domesticity with real specificity, even when the flirt tracks surrounding those moments blur together.

• Album Review: Ca$ino by Baby Keem | Shatter the Standards
Nearly five years between albums is a peculiar bet for a rapper who won a Grammy at twenty-one. Ca$ino digs into that wager with family confessions and desert mythology.

• Album Review: Eusexua by FKA twigs | Shatter the Standards
Sex-beats and playful melodies: The British model and pop enigma FKA twigs experiments with club sounds on ‘Eusexua’—her new album—to heal her soul from abuse.