Death Grips – The Money Store
[rating: 3.5/5]
Buy The Money Store
Sacramento trio Death Grips, MC Ride and production duo Andy Morin and Zach Hill, caused a bit of a stir in the hip-hop world last year with their debut album Exmilitary. So much of a stir, in fact, that Epic not only decided to sign them up but have committed to putting two Death Grips albums out in 2012. The Money Store is the first of these, and is thankfully not too afflicted by the ‘major label syndrome’ that sometimes waters down edgy underground hip hop acts – although it is slightly more accessible than last years attention-grabbing Exmilitary.
‘Accessible’ in the case of Death Grips, though, doesn’t mean you’re likely to hear them pop up on Radio 1’s drivetime playlist any time soon. The Money Store is an intense, dramatic and at times chaotic journey through the dark side of hip-hop, featuring a succession of bone-shaking beats and disjointed, unsettling synths. The fact that all these disparate noises are tied together in sometimes striking melodies is a testament to the production duo – and stops The Money Store from becoming too much of a murky, impenetrable swamp. The intensity of it all does get to you in the end though and the album becomes a bit of an ordeal as it progresses.
As with Exmilitary, the main focus within this sonic storm whipped up by Morin and Hill is MC Ride – whose aggressive delivery maintains an impressive level of insanity through The Money Store.
Listen to The Money Store:
