Death Grips

DISCOGRAPHY

Exmilitary (2011) 7/10

The Money Store (2012) 6.5/10

No Love Deep Web (2012) 5/10

Government Plates (2013) 6/10

Niggas on the Moon (2014) 5/10

Fashion Week (2014) 4/10

Jenny Death (2015) 6/10

ILYs: I've Always Been Good at True Love (2015) 5/10

Interview (EP, 2016) 4/10

Bottomless Pit (2016) 5/10

ILYs: Scum with Boundaries (2016) 5/10

Steroids (EP, 2017) 6.5/10 +

ILYs: Bodyguard (2017)

Year of the Snitch (2018) 6/10

Made up of three musicians from their own scenes — Andy Morin's rave music and electronica, Zach Hill's technical percussion and noise, and Stefan Burnett's hip-hop and punk — the aggressive "art-hop" trio Death Grips manifested industrial paranoia, glitchy beats, and primal-scream therapy that broke into the mainstream as well as the underground.

Typically made up of dense electronic bass, concussive drums, and guttural shouting, their music is primarily a physical experience that is only faintly cerebral by studio experiments channeled through epileptic raves, angry raps, and abnormal beats. All while bringing the sexual thrust and hedonism of club music.

The band formed in Sacramento, California on December 21st, 2010 — the same day they recorded their first song, Full Moon, released on their debut EP Death Grips in March 2011. Three tracks from the EP would be included on their first LP, Exmilitary.

Exmilitary defines the rawness of the band, coupled with the edgy demonstrations of Stefan Burnett's voice. It is a deranged interpretation of old sample-heavy hip-hop like the Beastie Boys, but whereas those voices were casual and urban, the voice of Death Grips is primal and alien.

Rock influences surface in samples from Jane's Addiction (Beware), Black Flag (Klink), Magma (Known For It), Bad Brains (Takyon), Link Wray (Spread Eagle Cross the Block), and Pink Floyd (I Want It I Need It). Their style of hip-hop harks back to the exuberance of Paul's Boutique and the sociopolitics of Public Enemy, and their abrupt industrial-scapes of metallic noise and bass-synth coupled with MC Ride's primal-scream hysteria imitates the work of such acts as Suicide and Nine Inch Nails.

The band signed with Epic Records in 2012.

The Money Store reduced the number of samples in favor of Morin's electronics. The band kept the hip-hop snares and rapping, but they dropped the revivalist hip-hop sound that drew comparisons to bands like the Beastie Boys in favor of a unique and visceral "beatscape" style.

However, the evolution of sound doesn't compensate for the music. There are moments of brilliance on here (The Fever, Hustle Bones, System Blower) as much as there are cash-grabs (I've Seen Footage, Bitch Please, Hacker).

The album's peak is The Fever, which begins as an ordinary rave ornamented by a satisfying beat accompaniment, further accompanied by atmospheric electronica before busting into a beaming riff of synth-funk. The claustrophobic jingle in the hook of Hustle Bones is surrounded by verses of a bombastic bass, similar to the warped bass in System Blower, the hook of which exhibits noise suggestive of a robot gasping for air.

The remaining tracks deliver serviceable beatscapes that sustain the ominous cyber-hop atmosphere, but fail to be as memorable as anything off Exmilitary.

The band intentionally leaked No Love Deep Web after Epic records postponed its distribution for business purposes. Its contents (aside from the cover of Zach Hill's erect penis) offer their most conventional cuts. Its distinction from the previous LP is the Death Grips equivalent of minimalism: the usual barrage of electronics that stimulate the cocaine-riddled beatscapes have been reduced for emphasis on reverb. The underwhelming Artificial Death in the West best demonstrates this idea's potential, but the majority is disposable, if not just awkward (Whammy, Hunger Games, Stockton). Even when the arrangements have loud parts, like the bass in Come Up and Get Me or World of Dogs, the sythesizers on Bass Rattle Stars Out the Sky, Pop, or Deep Web, one can't help but think that something is missing, like the mixes were just one instrument short.

The keepers are the mosh-rave slam No Love and the ominous Lock Your Doors. The rest seem routine, maintaining the same tricks and textures, but slightly more predictable and empty, like dressed-down repeats of The Money Store. Maybe if they had added more layers of clothing, it would have lived up to its successor.

The electronic barrage returned in all its glory for Government Plates.

The band used samples of Bjork for Niggas on the Moon, another disappointing experiment with pseudo-minimalism taken even further than No Love Deep Web.

The drill'n'bass album Fashion Week and its sequel, the EP Interview 2016 are instrumental showcases of Andy Morin's schizophrenic sampling and Zach Hill's percussive accompaniment.

The absence of Stephan Burnett makes the music shallow somehow, like the electro-industrial power-noise is all technological flair with no sense of emotion behind it. Granted, the beats are stimulating and unpredictable -- but all the anticipation built up are left frustrated by the abrupt cuts to the next "weird" and aggressive beat, which betrays the idea that the music is just a big tease.

Andy Morin and Zach Hill formed the ILYs in 2015. The band would be a dumping ground of their musical ideas rooted in Pavement-esque garage-rock accompanied with disco synth.

The ILYs debut I've Always Been Good at True Love is basically Zach and Andy's circle-jerk around their influences in the lo-fi "indie" scene from the early 1990s and the minimal-wave keyboard/vocal effects from the late '70s to early '80s.

Steroids (Crouching Tiger Hidden Gabber Megamix) is an EP of several untitled songs compiled into a single track. Transitions between these pieces are either natural or jarring — but whether it was intended to be a playlist of separate pieces or a single coherent piece is irrelevant considering how abrupt and abrasive the music is no matter the sequence.

The range of the material is perhaps the best demonstration of the band's maturity since Exmilitary: the beatscapes are interchangeably concussive and persistent, subtle or hidden, disorienting and messy, danceable or simple, spontaneous and forced, or calculated and precise.

In 2019 a vinyl release would include two bonus tracks, one of which featuring Primus's Les Claypool.

Year of the Snitch

TOP 10 SONGS

1. The Fever (2012)
2. Guillotine (2011)
3. Takyon (2011)
4. Lock Your Doors (2012)
5. Inanimate Sensation (2015)
6. Hustle Bones (2012)
7. You Might Think He Loves You For Your Money... (2013)
8. No Love (2012)
9. Anne Bonny (2013)
10. Culture Shock (2011)