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Death Grips - Bottomless Pit; The Sacramento hip hop group makes a surprising move...
Topic Started: Apr 30 2016, 11:58 AM (32 Views)
BellyeyeManhoo [Moderator]
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Meanie Leanie
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Last night, a very anticipated album leaked from the meme-creating, label-abusing, :fantano1: -lusting experimental group Death Grips. To say no one was expecting this would be a hell of an understatement, given that about a week ago, the group posted on their Twitter the, album cover, the official release date of May 6th and all the lyrics from the record. It seemed that, for once in the group's career, things were going to go exactly to plan.

Whoops.

The music? There's a lot of the same, but a little bit different. In terms of structure, the album consists mainly of very short songs, with few of them even cracking the three minute mark. This details makes for a very uncomfortable inconsistency when listening to the album as a whole, and I can't help but feel that this is intentional, taking the band's general aesthetic into account.

The record is nowhere near the barely-listenable cesspit that lead track 'Hot Head' promised us. There are a lot of ear worm moments on this record. Since I first played it, I have been genuinely unable to remove the female vocal sample from 'Giving Bad People Good Ideas' from my numb skull. The chorus from 'Three Bedrooms in a Good Neighborhood' is another one of these moments, which I can imagine myself and other fans shouting along to if and when they tour again. I'd go as far as saying that, bar a couple of songs, this is the most accessible Death Grips record we've heard since The Money Store.

Zach Hill's drumming stands out even more than usual. On the track 'Warping', he uses very slow hits and breaks to build tension in the chorus. Hill, as much as he revels in noise, uses silence to his advantage and it works to a very disjointing effect. MC Ride's vocals are surprisingly subdued as a whole. When compared to his earlier career's use of lung-tearingly loud wailing, some of these tracks have some fairly traditional rapping on some tracks. Much of the song 'Spikes', he stays true to the beat of the track as opposed to his usual wobbling style.

There's a lot to admire about the production here, too. 'Eh' sounds like a mid-90's Aphex Twin cut, with its very weird instrumental warps. '8080808' has an oddly soothing synth affect running throughout which personally reminds me of an old Gorillaz b-side. The aforementioned 'Hot Head' has a quiet interlude featuring some guitar work courtesy of Tera Melos' Nick Reinhart, as well as what seems to be a woodpecker solo for percussion, which I love. In fact, there are a lot of calm moments on here. 'Trash' has a brass background that appears in the intro an chorus which acts as a complementary contrast to the very glitchy beat happening simultaneously.

As a whole, I think this is a solid record and it's up there with some of the band's highest work. 9 Hot Heads out of 10.
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mrHarry [Admin]
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:fantano1: -lusting XDDD but yeah nice review :D
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