Review Summary: Death Grips may look back, but they keep moving stubbornly forward
A new Dead Goop album's out, kiddos, and once again the trio from shithole, California seem to get their sick kicks out of defying all my expectations, in good and bad ways alike.
As we all know, the only familiar territory for DG is the uncharted territory, so once again we see them plunge into new sounds and ideas while toying around with old ones in a deeply self-parodying fashion, with generally engaging results. Best of these come less from the hip-hop side of things and more from the Rock n' Roll side, with both Black Paint and Dilemma being not only the best songs here, but making themselves a place among their best material to date.
Black Paint has this heavy-psych atmosphere that reminds me a lot of the Melvins and the True Detective Season 1 soundtrack. Hazy, druggy, devil-worshipping stuff. Dilemma is a krautrock-flavored, Shrek-featuring epic with pulp-ass synths, a driving beat and Ride spitting bars in a very contained yet somehow still brutal fashion. the titest and stone-coldest he's sound in years, if you ask me. Another stand-out would have to be Disappointed, with its manic pace and blatant disregard for catchiness and immediacy.
A first for Death Grips, though？ Filler. Horn Section and Outro tick all the boxes. As inoffensive as they are unnecessary, this is material not even fit for their instrumental EP's and come off just as a way to bloat the tracklist. Disappointing.
On the not-so-good spectrum we also get a track like Little Richard, which is a straight up I.L.Y's song (a side-project i couldn't give less of a shit about) to the point it doesn't even sound like Ride singing. It's boring as all hell and even at - 2:30 minutes long it still manages to drag. Among their worst, if not THE worst Death Grips song period.
So yea, YotS's given us some of their best material alongside some of their worst. We got Jazz-Grips, Krautrock-Grips, Crash Bandicoot-Grips and Prog-Grips. You want record scratching？ Check. 80's Hip-Hop worship？ We got you. Blast beats？ You betcha. Sonic the hedgehog bars？ mah man.
Whatever it is, YotS just can't wait to show it off with a proud 'check me out' attitude that was sorely missing in Bottomless Pit (save few exceptions) and shines through all their discography. Does it all work？ hell no, but it doesn't need to.
Death Grips is, after all, a band that makes reinvention and experimentation not a necessity, but an ethos. Every new record DG release is a debut record, with all the exciting thrill and freshness of novelty and the mixed results that come with wanting to show off as much as possible. At this point in their carreer, some would appretiate a little more focus, reflexion. Bottomless Pit has proven (to me, at least) that this path leads to staleness.
Death Grips thrives in change, blossoms only when in constant movement and doesn't have time to stop and smell the roses. They are true to themselves only when doing whatever they want. Fuck who's listening.
