Since everyone else is giving this album rave reviews, I guess I have to throw my two cents in.
Death Grips is an experimental hip-hop outfit that blends darkened hip-hop with abstract electronics and HEAVY heavy, often distorted, beats. Following the success of their 2011 mixtape Exmilitary, which I thoroughly enjoyed, The Money Store picks up where Exmilitary left off and begins melting your face off from the first track ‘Get Got’. Compared to Exmilitary the instrumentation on this is so much better, the beats are catchier and more full, the bass is somehow even more booming and overall it just feels like a more official record and not just a mixtape. As with the previous work, MC Ride’s vocals are straight up abrasive aural bombardments, but on this record he seems to stretch out his repertoire a bit more and the tracks feature a wide array of different vocal styles, from the soft almost talk-rapping in Get Got to bizarre chantingesque style rapping in I’ve Seen Footage, there is however a lack of Takyon style screaming on this, which is a tad depressing. But the beats make up for this, for they are just absofuckinlutely catchy as hell, specifically the synthwork in Get Got and Bitch Please, the sampling in Lost Boys, to the ear piercing bass in Hustle Bones and Punk Weight, it’s just loud and gritty through and through. And we can’t forget the hooks: GETGETGETGOTGOTGOT, ITSSUCHALONGWAYDOOOOWN, IVESEENFOOTAGEIVESEENFOOTAGE, SYSTEMSYSTEMBLOWAAH; give it a listen and these will make sense, and will be stuck in your head for days, so god damn good.
I must say though, much like Exmilitary this took a good 4-5 listen for it to finally make sense for me, and even now it is still a heavy ass monster of a release that will take many more listens to make clearer; point is this album is dense and extremely hard to digest, so don’t let initial feelings get in the way of this, it takes time to appreciate and comprehend.
Overall it is a fantastic release and it is refreshing to see Death Grips get recognized between the Tylers and Lil B’s out there. Not to mention it is such a haunting and disgusting twist on a typically rhythmic and clean sounding genre, so check it out, or don’t, it doesn’t matter to me.
SHIT RATING: GOOD
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