I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside: An Album By Earl Sweatshirt

Despite its bedroom doorslamming title, Earl Sweatshirt’s new album feels more grown-up than his 2013 debut Doris. Pointedly, I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside: An Album By Earl Sweatshirt has dispensed with its predecessor’s plethora of guest spots and is largely self-produced. There’s a bracing sense of playfulness to the beats too: they swerve unpredictably between dissonant piano, skeletal guitar and witch-house sonics. This makes for an interesting bedfellow with Earl’s sad-sack persona (he raps about missing his grandma, stopstart relationships and taking beta blockers) and lethargic flow. Ultimately, highlights like the psychedelic AM // Radio and Faucet (driven by a Tame Impala-ish guitar figure and repeated line “I don’t know where else to call home lately”) temper the atmosphere of pot-drenched pensiveness. This portrait of the artist might be a gloomy, oppressive one but it’s grimly fascinating nevertheless. Watch Grief...