Check out what Corey Taylor had to say about the new Death Grips album!
Most people dont know this about me, but I like to listen to some pretty diverse shit when it comes to music. Being in two heavy bands, most fans automatically assume that I live in the land of Slayer and Neurosis all the time, screaming along in a dark, dank man cave somewhere deep in a secluded forest. While I love these particular bands and that man cave is a time share my taste in music is around the Cape and past the Horn, so to speak. I love my Frank Zappa just as much as I love my Ray LaMontagne. Sometimes its a Marvin Gaye day and sometimes I have a Minor Threat state of mind. So when I got the opportunity to write a piece about Death Grips, who Id heard a lot about, I was thrilled and jumped at it like a frog on crack. (My apologies to any amphibians currently struggling with addiction.)
Government Platesis a thing of beauty. On my first listen, I had the overwhelming sense that if the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion had a threesome with Tricky and Wu-Tang, the resulting baby would be Death Grips and everyone involved would have to go on Maury Povich to figure out who the father was. The album itself is bold, layered and pays respect to the past while denying the presents existence entirely, making the future a more exciting prospect. This is deconstruction, the free jazz era of hip-hop. Its a challenging listen in a good way; quite frankly, I think its gorgeous.
Starting with one of THE longest song titles ever committed to paper, “You might think he loves you for your money but I know what he really loves you for its your brand new leopard skin pillbox hat” (allow me to catch my breath) is wonderfully erratic with musical panic. From the first digital stream to the last analogue drum beat, it attacks the medium by never letting you get comfortable, all while the lyrics evince a hunger I havent heard in a while. With eerie harmonized vocals and pulsing rhymes, its a fantastic start to the excitement.
This sets the tone perfectly for the sort of experimentation and free-form to come. It lets you know that you need to forget what you think you know, but it does so with a smile. It continues with “Anne Bonny,” which is too beautiful to need structure. The lush keyboards get you thinking one way as the chant finishes with fuck dat then the tempo changes. “Two Heavens” is equal parts offensive (with its sexist comments) and poetic (with the whip of the wailing “Im on my way, yeah”), leaving you breathless for your troubles as the time signatures switch like a schizophrenic off his meds. And these are just the first three songs.
Sonically, you never know what noisy musical collision is going to happen next. Nothing about this is typical and thats a good thing. THIS is how you make technology your bitch not with tedious Autotuning or odes to fat asses. You use it like a virtuoso uses a new toy, cruising easily from frenetic bursts to elongated lapses of hypnotic beat elasticity. “This is Violence Now (Dont get me wrong)” has hints of Daft Punk in their glory days, ensconced in killer electronic battles as the titles mantra churns above the songs head. These guys love their effects, and it shows, and they also have a love of ‘80s synth samples. But the thing that makes me love this album may distract and detract enjoyment from other people: just when somethings getting good to you, they shift gears completely and swerve around a different corner entirely.
“Birds” is by far my favorite track here. The crazy hook that begins the song gets stuck in, and never gets out of, my head, even as the music suddenly transforms between something out of a horror movie and a Beat writer with the gift of Science. “One bird, two birds, three birds, four” Shit, this could be Edgar Allen Poe on the microphone. Theres something about it that makes me feel like Im watching an improv group hopped up on coffee and cigarettes. Forgive me for some blasphemy, but this is what King Crimson would have sounded like if theyd been more rap than rock. “Feels like a wheel” gets after you right out of the gate with its crazy, shake-your-ass beat and ear-candy drops. Here again, a sample inserts the title into the songs fabric then twists it into a nice audio kaleidoscope. “Im Overflow,” with its shot of hot fire spittle begat “Big House,” a killer track that starts with what sounds like remnants of Lou Reeds metal machines. Ive never heard Moogs and Casios have an orgy before, but I got a sonic boner hearing it in “Big House.” I couldnt help myself from rooting for this group with every song, hoping they would push things even further an encore for this Picasso throwing abstract autographs at his listeners. But as I kept on keeping on, a pattern was forming.
From the title track to “Bootleg (Dont need your help)” to “Whatever I want (Fuck whos watching) another one of my favorites on this album, beginning with the initial exclamation to the final blister on the musics lips I really enjoyed my time listening to Death Grips and I was ready to listen to it again. But I figured out what the pattern was: after a while I knew something different was coming, even if I didnt know what that would be. It felt like reading the ending of a book before reading the beginning. This is the only con I can possibly take away from all the pros: I wanted more, in a strange way. I dont mean more songs, but moresomething. I cant put my finger on it, but it was there and once I saw it, there was no unseeing it. But that isnt so much a negative as it is a perception.
So with all its ingenuity,Government Platescontains a familiarity that is indeed individual and fun but by the end becomes a bit repetitive. I love the album but I have a great feeling that this is only the start of something special a group with this much potential has room to go anywhere they want to, and I know Ill be even more excited when it comes time to dive into the next one
via The Talkhouse
