We don’t like outros, we don’t go outside: A review by the Singles Jukebox…

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[7.38]

Will Adams: This sounds like a slow-motion nightmare. The drums, compressed down to sub-phone quality, pierce you from hard left or right. Monsters hide behind every corner of the drones. Earl Sweatshirt owns the slow tempo. I might not want to return to it for its eeriness, but it’s powerful in the moment.
[7]

Thomas Inskeep: Claustrophobic like my favorite era of Tricky (circa Pre-Millenial Tension), this self-written, self-produced cut is the business. And it’s not just the music that’s reminiscent of Tricky; his rap, too, is taut and constricted: “Lately I’ve been panicking a lot,” Earl says, adding that he’s been “scrambling for Xanax.” Like a lost semi-classic from the late-’90s, this could fit just as easily on Latyrx the Album or nearly any rap record released on Ninja Tune, or even some second-level Wu-Tang albums like Genius/GZA’s Liquid Swords. This is tricky, intense, and powerful. 
[8]

Alfred Soto: “I just want my mind intact,” he intones in the second and most powerful third as the woozy backing track threatens to absorb him and his molasses-slow verses (in places he sounds as menacing as RZA on Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s “Snakez”). Not once do I get the sense that this slowness is borne of uncertainty — he’s weighing every word. The outro, however — the fuck’s up with that?
[7]

Anthony Easton: This would be too ominous, too dark, and too overwhelming, except the little coda near the end provides a kind of relief. The beginning sounds like something out of a Hammer soundtrack, and the rest of the work is ominous, so the last little bit of ’80s cop-soundtrack brass is a brilliant formal trick. 
[8]

Micha Cavaseno: First off, that outro is an atrocity and the kind of cancerous influence that Stones Throw has always held upon these kids, the sort of self-reflexive need to break mood and switch violently that Dilla and Madlib cast out to sea. Its likewise manifested in Earl himself, who’s decided for his new album that he must put away his childish fun. You can tell in the harsh grayscale of his production style, a hard knife cutting through the technicolor tapestries Pharrell and Tyler once supplied him with. You can hear it in his flow, ever consciously devoted to MF Doom’s sloppy slip-slidery, but now also resembling “I Hate You With A Passion”-era Andre Nickatina’s vitriol. He no longer slides and slaps on tracks like when that teen with the spooky eyes first graced us, that insolent little bratty prodigy who’d thumb his nose and stunt. This guy is mean, bitter, afraid; he doesn’t want to do a trick and he’s going to be very pissy if you mention what he used to do. Its the sharp comedown, reminiscent of Stalker’s remix of Prodigy’s “New Yitty” in how it seeps unwanted life like a sieve-like crack formed under the pressure of being “the one.” Earl is thrashing, trying to shake off his old life and become someone else. Whether or not we want to follow him, quite frankly I don’t think he really cares.
[7]

Jonathan Bradley: When I first found out that screwing-n-chopping was a thing, I used to spend a lot of time shoving mp3s into Goldwave and listening to them at such a slow pace it would sound like the drums were breaking apart and the chords contained aeons. (Hot tip: Britney’s “Everytime” kills this way.) My younger noodling has a lot in common with the artistic impulse of “Grief”; Odd Future’s mushy lo-fi aesthetic always seemed as much about about adolescent wilfulness as it did DIY practicality, but as Earl’s got older, he’s moved even further into the murk from his relatively showy original incarnation. The title of this song and of its parent album acts as a thesis statement for why he might be doing so. This is best when it sounds ugly without sounding like Tyler: this collective’s troupe leader is marked by his inability to be anything but sharp-edged. Earl’s talents are more subtle when he allows them to be.
[7]

Edward Okulicz: If you think of grief as a fog that clouds your senses and thoughts, “Grief” has production to match — a dense haze of headache-inducing rumbles and shakes. Earl has the intensity required of the track too. There may not be a hook to latch on to, but it’s gripping. Not quite charisma, but he’s got the ability to draw you inside a story.
[7]

Megan Harrington: The star of an Earl Sweatshirt track will always be Earl Sweatshirt. He’s not a rapper suited to flashy production or dumb fun bars and he stands in relief to much of what’s popular in rap right now, singular perhaps to the point of being boring. “Grief” is slow and circular, never building momentum, never even moving. But without being swept up and dropped into Earl’s world, it’s incredibly effortless to sink into the song. The darkness is penetrating and Sweatshirt’s confidence makes his precise verses feel impromptu. I feel my breathing slow and my eyelids sink a little as I relax in his construction. It’s this ease that makes the upbeat tag that ends “Grief” so essential. Suddenly, you’re returned to your world and sunshine and daylight and it’s jarring and awful. Earl Sweatshirt is Xanax you didn’t know you needed. 
[8]