The road to Kim Petras’ debut LP was paved with complications: First, the Grammy Award-winning German singer told fans a completed LP was in limbo, then leaked widely, then eventually scrapped. So she got back to work creating what would become the massive Feed the Beast—14 tracks of glossy, booming pop. You can hear the ambition in the industrial tones of “brrr”, or the retro stylings of “Revelations”, or the campiness that recalls early-2010s Katy Perry in “Coconuts”. Slow burns are few and far between—Petras is a master of club-ready anthems—so even the heartbreaking “Thousand Pieces” is recorded over a trap beat. Feed the Beast boasts a marquee-ready list of collaborators, too: Nicki Minaj joins her on “Alone”, her longtime inspiration BANKS appears on “BAIT” and the album includes “Unholy”, her seismic single with Sam Smith, as a bonus track. “I like people who won't just jump on the song because someone's popping or anything like that,” she tells Apple Music's Zane Lowe. “And Nicki, Sam and BANKS are all people that they have to love the song.” But Feed the Beast delves so much deeper than big names on the tracklist, as its true strength lies in Petras’ vulnerability and resilience. She weathered a brutal breakup and writing about the fallout was a brutal but necessary part of healing. “I had to process it in music, it’s what I do,” she shared. “I've definitely just grown up a lot in a short amount of time. I trusted myself, and I feel like that's something that I haven't done since my demo days, where I was just on GarageBand or just making it completely by myself. I feel back in this exciting place where I can go in with anyone and don't need anyone's re-evaluation that it's good.”