By Adam Payne-Reichert
Even as a college student, there’s still something attractive about listening to music that you know your parents would hate. It gives you a sense of independence, suggests that this group is speaking to your generation and creates a unique energy and mood. If you’re still chasing those feelings but have run out of groups that fit the bill, I highly recommend you check out Death Grips (DG).
This experimental hip-hop group’s previous releases have been characterized sonically by an unbridled intensity and lyrically by cryptic deep-dives into some of life’s darkest themes. In its double LP, it proves that it can go even deeper by turning everything up to 11 and inviting the listeners to watch the madness unfold.
The song N*ggas on the Moon is one of the more bizarre tunes included in this double album. For this LP, DG worked with Björk to record her vocal samples, which they then chopped, modulated and represented in various forms throughout the album. Fortunately, this reliance on Björk presents seemingly no creative limitations for the group. Take the album’s second track, “Billy Not Really.” This track starts out as a high-energy EDM song, light and airy, but incredibly detailed and complex. The song then progresses into a semi-groovy section, where what seems to be Björk’s vocals sound like a set of pan flutes. This melody is backed by a beat that plays like Hill is drumming with sticks on a metal desk. Throughout the rest of the song, these and other palettes are offered and developed to their fullest extent, demonstrating the group’s ability to toe the line between chaos and monotony.
The Björk samples also serve to underscore the centrality of the human voice in the album. Towards the end of the song “Voila,” vocal samples from MC Ride, the group’s singer, and Björk help fill the percussion for the song. Adding to this insanity, Ride simultaneously raps on top of these samples. Frequently criticized for his one-speed vocal delivery, Ride varies his dynamic range throughout the album and adds some punch to his louder sections. The human voice also supports the themes of the album in a variety of ways. For instance, in the opening track, Ride delivers his first lines and then interrupts and talks over himself, restarting the verse and suggesting his mentally disordered state, a notion present in much of DG’s lyrical canon.
After the admittedly somewhat abrupt ending of N*ggas on the Moon, the group rapidly accelerates into Jenny Death, the punk-and-noise-rock LP of this album. Benefiting from the addition of an electronic guitarist and an organ player, this LP also marks a significant departure from the sound profiles present in some of DG’s previous albums, N*ggas on the Moon included. For example, the song “Turned Off,” opens with a surprisingly sunny guitar riff that soon reveals its true, DG-influenced nature when the melody takes a sinister turn. The song destructs into an unadulterated fight-or-flight-inducing section, which comprises a guitar part distorted nearly beyond recognition, Hill’s explosive crash cymbal and Ride’s screaming vocals. The song “On GP,” on the other hand, sounds like DG trying their hand at psychedelic rock.
This second LP also makes a strong case for understanding the two LPs as a cohesive project rather than two discs of material thrown together. Like in N*ggas on the Moon, the group takes several creative risks on Jenny Death, such as allowing song structures to elongate and to breathe more than in previous albums. The trio also uses this disc to reintroduce and slightly reshape many of the tropes that they initially developed on N*ggas on the Moon. The tracks “Turned Off” and “Why a B*tch Gotta Lie” on this LP remind me of “Say Hey Kid” and “Have a Sad Cum B.B.” from the first LP, with the former in each case being a high-energy, percussively-complex track and the latter being to some extent a reimagining of the song that preceded it.
Despite offering an often challenging listen even for longtime DG fans, these two discs represent a highly creative output from the trio. On N*ggas on the Moon, DG is able to skillfully balance loyalty to the Björk samples and the creation of a consistently engaging and dynamic sonically universe, and the result is incredibly unique and innovative. Jenny Death presents a high-energy, varied tour through the group’s successful effort at incorporating new instruments and musicians into the mix. Lyrically, both of the LPs are significantly more abstract than their previous albums and thus offer more room for interpretation. Although I’d recommend that new listeners first introduce themselves to DG by checking out The Money Store or No Love Deep Web, any fan of the group’s previous work would be remiss by letting this incredible album slip through the cracks.
