In an last year, Death Grips drummer Zach Hill stated their major concern with their music. “We don’t want to make anything that supports indifference, Hill said. “We always talk about the middle of the road, and how it’s the worst place to be artistically.”
Three albums in to Death Grips’ career, there’s no arguing with that. Throw on their breakout success “The Money Store” or its follow-up “NO LOVE DEEP WEB,” at a party and watch the room divide unevenly by taste. Like Phish, the majority of a random sampling will hate it, but the smiling few will really, really freak out.
As sudden as an earthquake, , “Government Plates,” to an otherwise unsuspecting internet last week. Like their previous albums, “Government Plates” is a visceral experience brimming with piss, vinegar and gunpowder. It’s also band’s most exciting work to date, surprising in many ways: not just because of its sudden release, but also that it’s essentially an electronic album— and one of the best this year.
Unlike your typical Death Grips shout-a-thon, half the tracks on “Government Plates” treat vocals like an instrument rather than a sounding board. That’s not to say MC Ride is toned down on these songs—his warmongering screams can be as front and center as ever—but we hear considerable restraint. The only thing menacing about “” is the title. The sole words in the song besides those in its title are “You have been banned from the channel,” delivered by the sort of disembodied female voice you’d imagine accompanying a pop-up ad. Title track “Government Plates” makes a quick statement about corporations and government that’s lost under its playful retro electronica. “Bootleg (Don’t Need Your Help)” chants its six-word declaration of independence over a screwed trance rhythm.
The album is full of these smash-and-run moments. Even the long form songs can feel like a cavalcade of demented imagery, an auditory . “Birds” counts off, well, birds like a children’s song, then declares “life is war” and ponders grave digging and bleach cocktails. It’s the most affecting track on the album, though less in the sort of let’s-go-break-shit way Death Grips are known for than in a Jesus-this-is-disturbing one. Over a devastating hip-hop beat, MC Ride enters the mind of a madman on ““—ghost ships, robots, “sixty beggars behind my casket coma”—before slurring, “Can’t wait to fuck my brain.” It sounds terrifying, and it is if you choose to connect with it on that plane. But even on a purely sonic level, it’s enthralling, as its twinkling beat plunges headlong down a cliff into Mr. Hyde territory with no warning.
“Government Plates” ends on with its most memorable track, “.” Its six-plus minutes is a schizophrenic journey down the rabbit hole: ecstatic and disturbed, funny and frenetic. But above all, it’s pissed off. Who or what isn’t exactly known. The all-powerful government, God, death—the band doesn’t discriminate. But like “Government Plates” as a whole, with each listen, you end up feeling the “why,” more, even if you don’t totally understand it. As esoteric and polarizing as their music may be, Death Grips have never sounded so focused or convincing as they do on “Government Plates.” Even if you hate hardcore, it’s worth listening to for Hill’s mind-blowing rhythms.
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Dylan Owens is Reverb’s all-purpose news blogger and album reviewer. You can read more from him in Relix magazine and the comment sections of WORLDSTARHIPHOP.
