Currently Digging: Death Grips
Abrasive, aggressive, confrontational, indecipherable, cacophonous. Death Grips’ debut The Money Store is a lot to take in, especially if you’re not sprinting on a treadmill while listening to it. It channels Public Enemy and 80’s hardcore, but it sounds nothing like either. It’s probably closely associated with “rap-rock,” but there’s not a traditional shred of guitar or swagger. Discordant, reversed noises and samples reverberate around angry, often unintelligible lyrics. The beats, provided by Hella and Marnie Stern rhythm machine Zach Hill, are a barely functional backbone to this chaos.
This is one of the most polarizing listens of 2012, without a doubt. It’s going to hit you with either immediate disgust or intense headbanging. For a quick glimpse into the fray, skip to the double shot of “Hustle Bones” and “I’ve Seen Footage.” These tracks, found in the middle of the album, capture probably the most accessible territory Death Grips bothers to dabble in. The rest is an apocalyptic, angry tirade without reason and only occasional rhyme. And the result is simultaneously shocking and awesome.
