Acknowledging that the project’s entire existence has been an elaboration on deep internet culture is a starting point for the conversation: What Lil Pump is to SoundCloud, what Car Seat Headrest is to Bandcamp, Death Grips are to 4chan. If referencing such annotations seems like an unforgivable faux pas, I would argue that it’s borderline critical malpractice to look at any Death Grips album without considering how their fans will interact with it. I don’t know if that was Death Grips’ intent, but at least one of their conspiracy-prone fans seems to think so on Genius. She turned 69 on June 21, the day that Year of the Snitch leaked. Is “Streaky” MC Ride’s stab at trap-rap or a strip club anthem? It’s hard to tell from its actual lyrics, but when the album threatens total abstraction, that’s where a drummer as expressive and destructive as Zach Hill grounds the sound into something resembling a band playing a song.Īs far as what Death Grips actually have to say this time around, “Linda’s in Custody” refers to Linda Kasabian, a Manson Family member-turned-key witness for their prosecution.
Mid-’90s drum ‘n’ bass beats with shoegaze guitars? “Death Grips is Online” will certainly try to create a “Dreamcast Teenage Riot.” “What if Death Grips went rockabilly?” is a question nobody was probably asking, but god bless “Disappointed” for giving us the answer. It proves to be very adaptable to an increasingly diffuse number of sounds on Year of the Snitch. The convergence of nu-metal and SoundCloud rap might’ve happened anyway-same with the bonkers, jump-cutting metalcore of bands like Code Orange and Vein-but it’s possible to hear their groundbreaking 2012 album The Money Store as a soft launch for what was to come-a context to understand the kind of heavy music either associated with high-intensity CrossFit or Mountain Dew-fueled eSports.Įven still, Death Grips’ sonic signature is so completely their own that it can’t be evoked with anything short of parody. Year of the Snitch makes it easier to see how their essence may have leached into today’s serrated musical landscape. So on their 10th release in seven years, Year of the Snitch, Death Grips stay politically agnostic, persistently agitated-in a word, noided. They’re industrious, downright reliable, even. Regardless of how you classify their prolific output thus far, the noise-rap art project has averaged one album per year, with enough variation and quality control to make their “ will they or won’t they break up” shtick background noise. In the process of trying to sabotage their career at every turn, Death Grips became career artists.
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