*picks up a rock* Oh look! A new Death Grips album!
Praise be Death Grips, doing what they do best and releasing a new album…just because. The insane experimental hip hop trio dropped another album sometime early this morning with no hype, no fanfare, they just kinda did it and people flipped out as per usual. This time around they’ve partnered with Icelandic singer-songwriter Björk, who I have to admit I’ve never listened to a song of her’s in my life but I don’t think it’s required listening for this album.
I feel like their last album, Government Plates, was a snippet of what to expect from them in the future and this is the result. If you’ve listened to all their albums you can definitely feel like they were going more and more minimal with the production. Exmilitary was very chaotic and rough sounding while The Money Store felt much more refined and slimmed down but still keeping that aggressive sound through songs like “Double Helix” and “System Blower”. This isn’t even taking into account MC Rides lyrics which, across all of their first three albums, remind me more of a crazy homeless man screaming at a telephone pole than a real hip hop MC. However, NO LOVE DEEP WEB felt like they were trying to do a lot with a little and I think it worked very well. “Artificial death in the west” is easily the chillest Death Grips song and, in my opinion, was a stellar way to close out the album. After scaling back like that for three albums, where were they going to go from there?
Apparently forward, well past that that bludgeoning sound that Exmilitary brought them to attention with. Government Plates practically punches you in the face with it’s opening track and that sort of glitch atheistic stays with them on niggas on the moon. I’d go as far as to say they’ve done it better than what they showed on Government Plates. MC Ride is back to violently screaming at various objects, opting for less looping of phrases this time around and, at the end of the day, isn’t that what we want from Death Grips? Ride telling us about crazy government conspiracies the voices in his head keep whispering to him? Björk’s presence isn’t so much featured as it is clipped and chopped and screwed into each song on the album. It’s definitely and interesting combination that pays off.
The best part is that this is just half an album. The full album will be called the powers that b with disc two named jenny death coming this fall. While niggas on the moon is another interesting album in Death Grips discography, it’s short and leaves something to be desired that, hopefully, the second half of the album will bring together. You can grab it for free from Death Grips website if you click the cover up there.
Because "Wires" Was Taken 