No Love Deep Web (2012)

This review was also posted on ArtFist.org

I sometimes wonder whether the music I like can be affected by the knowledge that others won't like it. I don't think it's deliberate but I can sometimes listen to something and find myself thinking "Oh so-and-so would hate this" and get a rather juvenile sense of enjoyment out of that fact - without actually subjecting said person to the music. And I can probably think of a lot of people who wouldn't like Death Grips.

I started writing something about them a while ago but with the release of their newest album No Love Deep Web via Soundcloud I thought it was time to finish it. While strictly described as a hip-hop group their musical influences come from all over the place, mashed together with an almost Punk aesthetic that suggests a complete lack respect for the rules of music. Their first album/mixtape Exmilitary shows its punk influences quite clearly with samples from Bad Brains, Janes Addiction and the Beastie Boys but also includes more diverse choices like David Bowie and the Pet Shop Boys. Their official debut The Money Store is much more electronic, while still retaining their signature chaotic production.

Tying it all together is MC Ride, who is hard to describe in terms of other artists, perhaps on occasion sounding like Wu-Tang Clan's RZA at his most furious. To someone who dislikes hip-hop I could imagine him seeming like the summing up of everything they think they hate about rappers. I feel confident in saying that there are technically better MCs out there but the simplicity and bluntness of his approach is part of the appeal to me. It all adds up to create very visceral music, where I don't have a clue what most of it's about but I find it very compelling at the same time. It does however put him in the unenviable position of being disliked by hip-hop purists and critics alike.

I don’t often get to spend much time just listening to music these days, so my first few listens to this new album have been during work, where I didn't feel it made that much of an impression on me. This might seem obvious but their previous albums have made it quite hard to do anything else at the same time. After a few more focused listens I think there are a few tracks that are a little more forgettable, or at least they haven't fully convinced me of their importance yet. It also perhaps follows the template of the last album (if you can call it that) and doesn't have as much impact as the new sound of each of their other records.

There's still a lot of great stuff here though, including the opening track Come up and get me. This takes its time setting the tone before any vocals come in and I find it quite strange that it manages to create a different feel each time it comes back to the same repeated sections with lots of filtering. Lil Boy starts off feeling like the kind of simplistic electro that I don't really appreciate but it builds on this to keep it interesting. I particularly like the synth lines that sound like they have digital errors from a dirty CD surface, perhaps the modern equivalent of deliberately adding vinyl crackles to create that period feel? This is something I thought again later during Lock your doors, which seemingly uses digital clipping to suggest that the music can barely be contained in its chosen medium.

Forming half of the album title, No Love is one of my early favourites. It starts with deep synthetic bass drums, which you expect to set the tone before a whole new level of insanity is layered over the top of it. I found myself unable to stop nodding my head to this one, the whole song feels like a sustained breakdown from a metal song. It just keeps coming back again feeling tougher when you think you've heard everything from it, something really enhanced by the addition of live drums as it goes on. I'm not sure if they're supposed to be related in any way but Deep Web comes much later on the album, with relentless bassy synth lines dominating the whole thing, punctuated by Ride's furious yells.

Weirdly enough, I did actually find a couple of songs amongst all this chaos which felt a bit more chilled out than those surrounding them. Black Dice alternates between a relaxed dreamy intro and darker sections with short sharp synth stabs and harsh vocals. Later on, Pop starts with dizzying synths and retro drum machine cowbells and rimshots, switching to these blissfully chilled out sections that remind me of The Future Sound of London. As the track continues they start to morph into a slightly more intimidating feel and on the whole I would say that this is one of the songs with the most progression on the album.

I'm not going to go into detail about the rest but I will at least say that while there are tracks that have kind of passed me by there are still other great tracks to discover, like the madcap cut up drums of World of Dogs. It's final song Artificial death in the west is a welcome change of pace, with the much slower tempo allowing for a more gradual creation of atmosphere, with bass lines that seemed reminiscent of a John Carpenter soundtrack. It's also the only song that seems to come to a gradual end, allowing the album to wind down slightly after so many songs with rather abrupt endings.

Overall I think it's a solid album but it has perhaps had less of an impact on me than their others, not really having a stand out "what the hell am I listening to?" moment that seemed to define them for me. This was probably inevitable though as they start to get into a groove for the kind of sound they want for the group. In a way I feel like I could reach the end of my love affair with them here or start to get into them even more. To be fair I've barely even scratched the surface of their lyrical content (I've always been a 'music first' kind of person) but I've still found their other work pretty compelling while letting the vocals just become part of the music as a whole. So who knows where this album will end up in my estimation a little while down the road.