Death Grips

i care about lex's opinion about death grips about as much as i care about tuomas' opinion about cabin in the woods

mb view it as a tiny bit of karmic payback for clueless rnb reviews by indie critics filled w/ unenlightening reference points that only underline their inability to hear it properly

okay the first 20 seconds of this are already more interesting than what I hear od Exmilitary yesterday

i agree with whiney that the anarchic energy is tamed more than just somewhat but there's a lotta good good in here

lex getting assigned the death grips album is my favorite lex assignment since lex got assigned the klaxons debut

it's kind of funny seeing someone who champions Cassie use "one-note" in a pejorative manner

this is kind of hitting me like Shabazz Palaces on PCP, which is a concept that gets better and better the more I think about it

and not to pick a fight with you whiney but the emphasis on this being rap is weird to me as hip hop is really not how i'm identifying this internally
just feels like fleet footed hardcore to me

― "in this super-sexy postracial age" (forksclovetofu)

rap is a big part of the dna though. it's a hybrid, not a this or that.

shabazz palaces comparison otm

"emphasis"

yeh okey

lex's review seems pretty positive to me, y'all are being a little "omg you brought down the avengers' rotten tomatoes score!!" at him

I don't understand how can you identify this as "not hip-hop"? I think referencing MC 900 Ft Jesus as a very canny move as this really does slot into that type of weirdo industrial-goth-hop vein that nu-metal/hip-hop hybrids did their damnedest to destroy.

Then again, I've called a whole bunch of bizarre things hip-hop (like "Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors") so maybe that's just one of my default filters.

xp: It is pretty positive for a 2/5 review, I'll give you that.

ok maybe not 'pretty positive' but it's far from a hatchet piece

xpost -- i didn't see the numerical score on the review, admittedly

it was either 2 stars or 3 stars and 3 stars seemed way too generous for an album that in all honesty i am never going to play again and frequently didn't actually enjoy in any way

my drake commission must be an all-time favourite

death grips need more promo photos

just feels like fleet footed hardcore to me

whaaaat?

it's all thrashy punk to me but i'm not picky what you call it as long as you scream it hoarsely when you call it that

the rhythms and sonic "palette" are totally not thrashy punk. do you listen to much thrashy punk?

3 of 5 is the default "this is not bad for what it is, but it's definitely not for me, idgi" score. it's like abstaining from passing judgment. 2 of 5 is a slam.

"i'm not picky what you call it"

haha a SLAM ooh

like i said i didn't see the star rating when i said what i said though

thank you ma'am

lol if two stars is a SLAM what is one star, as per drake and klaxons?

star ratings and scores are kind of not the point anyway but it seems fair for "some elements i really like but overall i'm not feeling this"

one star is for me to poop on

the drums/beats are less pronounced on this than on ex-military ... at least on first listen.

5) holy shit!
4) good shit
3) shit, i dunno
2) a bit shit
1) shit sandwich

enlightening music discussion

this is why they pay me the big bucks to post on ILX

it's definitely a rap album for ppl that know what Hella is

ouch

what? i mean it's kind of rap for underground rock peeps. which is fine w/me.

death grips is for the children

Sorta damning it with faint praise there. Then again, I was talking about this album favorably the other day and I heard myself compare dude's delivery to HoP-era Everlast.

Like don't love this album, but it's doing that thing where it sorta keeps beckoning me back to listen to it, which usually means I'll end up liking it a lot more about six months from now.

does this sound like a louder faster harder version of tricky circa pre-millennium tension because that's what some of djp's reference points seem to suggest

i always preferred the jazzier side of mc 900 ft jesus to the harder stuff

does this sound like a louder faster harder version of tricky circa pre-millennium tension because that's what some of djp's reference points seem to suggest

Yeah actually that's not far off

Except Tricky even at his most fucked up felt like he was able to actually ride a beat at some point and I'm not sure Death Grips dude can at all.

I'm a few songs into this and this feels like the clunkiest end of Def Jux style undie rap filtered through a lame post-dubstep prism. Lame lame lame lame lame.

Lame.

go back to england

I'm now trying to listen to it as rock music and it doesn't work that way either.

do you like minor threat?

idk, looking at this from a undie hip hop pov and expecting flow to ride beats and such is probably the wrong way. feels like more of a noise/hardcore thing to me.

I like Minor Threat a bit, but there's an obvious physicality to Minor Threat that I don't hear here. I find it difficult to feel rock energy without rock instrumentation, especially drums, but this record doesn't feel like it really has rap energy either, it feels awkwardly slumped between two stools as it is.

Maybe I'd like the punishing mixtape that Lex hates a bit more...

yeah if there's one thing this album of frenetic Hella dude drumming and an MC screaming every line is missing is energy

agree that it doesn't work terribly well in the way i typically expect from rap, and it definitely isn't rock & roll, but i like the sounds and propulsion and wall-crashing energy. it works just fine for what it is, even if that thing isn't 100% clear.

I can think of a number of words to describe Death Grips, but slumping (awkwardly or otherwise) is not one that generally comes to my mind. I do think that Money Store somehow manages the trick of being simultaneously odder (in that it sounds far less like something I could imagine a major label being into) and also more conventional sounding (if a certain sort of Wire magazine-y IDM thing that they have going on can be called conventional) than Ex-Military (which I absolutely loved.) It's still quite good though and I'm excited to hear the next record which is what supposed to come out in a couple of months?!?

it's not even just "riding" the beat from a technical pov that dude can't do, it's like he just goes hammer & tongs at the mindless yelling without even hearing the music around him - his voice bears almost no relation to it at all

I don't think that's true at all! Especially on this one, with the way Ride's vocals are cut up and manipulated to suit each beat,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNwiVYaa7tA&feature=youtu.be

yeah if there's one thing this album of frenetic Hella dude drumming and an MC screaming every line is missing is energy

I obviously was interested enough to put it on again today in the cold light of sobriety. I'm about halfway through now and it's definitely better when the pace picks up - otherwise I'd say it has force rather than energy, in the way that a bulldozer does. I'm really not a fan of the mid-paced halfstep lope that's employed most of the time, it seems to go against the grain of the urgency in the vocals.

'Hustle Bones' is definitely the best so far.

not having much of an idea how to listen to a record doesn't nec make yr opinion worthless, but if you bring nothing to a record don't act like it's the record's fault if you come away empty-handed