The Shadows The Best of The Shadows (Compilation)

Leading up to Stop Staring at the Shadows, $uicideboy$ had already made a home in the darkness, swirling sinister, Juicy J–indebted soundscapes with punk melodies, nihilistic lyrics, and sprightly triple-time flows that sound like a devil's incantation. From the time they dropped their first projects in 2014, the duo comprising $crim and Ruby da Cherry merged the past and present for dozens of exhilarating releases that could be hedonistic, reflective, and cathartic—the type of transformation that happens when the sky is jet black. Their grim, surrealistic aesthetic remains on Stop Staring, with traces of profound humanity sandwiched between pummeling flows and hymns to opiates. They revel in the dark side on "All Dogs Go to Heaven," hopscotching through fried bass and jittery piano for a thrill ride featuring drugs, gunplay, and braggadocio. "What the F**k Is Happening" lives up to its title, with its hellish horns and a kinetic King Goldy sample evoking disorienting intensity; Ruby and $crim's jumpy flows only multiply the immersive effect. With its eerie sound and brutal symbolic lyricism, "F**k Your Culture" plays out like a gruesome horror movie, with $crim letting loose couplets befitting of Satan himself: "I'm blooding, gunning, running with the devils, man/Triple the six up, fuck my b***h up, flipping crucifixes, man." The shadows are Ruby and $crim's natural habitat, but they can also find refuge in lucid emotionality. "I Wanna Be Romanticized" sees the two remember dead romances with penetrating honesty. Adorned with gleaming bells, ethereal synths, and punk-inflected melody, the track is coated in sincerity, but there remain flashes of the gruesome. "I have two sides/One that wants to see you all thrive and one that wants to see you die," sings Ruby. On "This Just Isn't Empirically Possible," Ruby and $crim traverse a dazed electric-guitar line for a trip back to fatalism; the staccato rap and sing-song harmony imbue the track with discordant beauty, a throughline for a project that instructs you to stop gazing at shadows, even as Ruby and $crim stare right through them.