Death Grips

One Liner:  Aggressively aggravating experimental rap and abrasive industrial 

Wikipedia Genre:  Experimental hip hop, industrial hip hop, electropunk, rap rock, punk rap

Home: Sacramento

Poster Position: 2 (5) 
Both Weekends.
Sunday at 7:15.

Thoughts:  This is one of those bands that I have heard of for years, but the one time I tried them out was awful.  Here is my review of their 2016 album.

"Death Grips - Bottomless Pit.  Oh, wow.  This music really sucks.  These guys came onto my radar because they played Sound on Sound, and the Chronicle reviewer absolutely savaged them.  In turn, several people absolutely savaged the Chronicle reviewer guy (seriously see the comments to that article).  So, that makes me nervous to say this album sucks, because the Death Gripper Army will also come after me (but then again, none of them will even know this exists, so I'll probably be OK). Hard to describe what this sounds like - angry, messy, glitchy synth and beats with angry bark rapping and anger.

If I was ever able to travel into the past, after gambling on sure things and making my millions, I'd take this video and show it to people and end America right then and there."

I'm sure they have a critical-darling-following of the type of people who like to be challenged by their music and think deeply unpleasant sounds mean that the art is better than things that sound good.  But I am not that guy.  They are an experimental hip hop group formed in Sacramento in 2010, and they have "earned critical acclaim and a cult following, while their aggressive performance style and cryptic interactions with their fans and the media have gained widespread notoriety."  They claimed to break up in 2014, but literally released a new disc right then.  Their unhinged statement at the time: "We are now at our best and so Death Grips is over. We have officially stopped. All currently scheduled live dates are canceled. Our upcoming double album The Powers That B will still be delivered worldwide later this year via Harvest/Third Worlds Records. Death Grips was and always has been a conceptual art exhibition anchored by sound and vision. Above and beyond a "band". To our truest fans, please stay legend."  Riiiiiiight.

I'm not sure if their first three songs are giving me a headache, or if that was already on the way anyway, but this is tough to listen to.  Anthony Fantano gave their first album his first ever 10/10 score.  One of their album covers is a member's erect penis with the album title written on it.  Ugh.

Top track is from the debut album, 2012's The Money Store.  "Get Got" has 44.7 million streams.  I am honestly a little nervous to pull up this video on my work computer right now.

Sadly, I can see that track being hype at the Festival so that all of the kids can mosh and freak out together before they go see Odesza.  If this thing is for you, then I hope that you drink lots of water, bring earplugs, and tell your mother you love her before you head to the Park.