Do you guys remember where you were when Death Grips dropped Government Plates? I was eating a pita and checking the internet when…
OK, so maybe this isn’t one of those kind of memories. But a new surprise Death Grips release (even though they’ve done this before) is still pretty exciting — especially in mid-November when us music bloggers are just starting to straighten out our year-end lists. Leave it to Death Grips to toss a little anarchy into the pot, I guess.
Without any further ado, ladies and gentlemen, here are a bunch of scattered thoughts on the highlights from Government Plates…
“You might think he loves you for your money but I know what he really loves you for it’s your brand new leopard skin pillbox hat”
There are very few groups who’ll kick off an album with the sound of breaking glass and some really aggravating synths, but Death Grips want to make sure if you’ve never heard their work before that you get off on the right foot. For the most part, though, “You might…”sounds like the group is following the minimalist-blast-path they paved with last year’s literally-label-dropping LP No Love Deep Web.
“Anne Bonny”
Anne Bonny was an Irish pirate who liked to loot in the Bahamas during the 16th century. She apparently got her start as Calico Jack’s mistress, and from there they had a baby and took over a number of ships. She was then captured and supposed to be hanged, but she asked for mercy because she was pregnant. Now, regardless of whether she was actually with child or not, no one really knows what happened afterward. Until she died. And then Death Grips wrote a song about her. Good to have you back, Anne.
“Birds”
Death Grips dropped “Birds” as a one-off in August, and I suppose its familiarity makes it stand out amidst the rest of this album. And even though most of the tracks here use a pretty minimal amount of equipment, “Birds” feels less busy and less clustered than the tracks that proceed it. Nice to hear MC Ride counting birds instead of threatening to fuck someone’s face, too.
“Big House”
“Big House” stands out because unlike the majority of Government Plates, it actually goes somewhere, starting in one spazzy direction and ending up in another. Not to mention there are lyrics here to “grasp” onto.
“Whatever I want (Fuck who’s watching)”
Death Grips almost always deliver on their closers, and “Whatever I want…” proves to be no exception to the rule. Clocking in at over six minutes, it feels more fleshed out than the album that proceeded it. And, suffice to say, this is the only track on the album that I feel really captures the creative-chaos-goodness that makes Death Grips such a force to be reckoned with.
Recap:
For the most part, Government Plates just feels really rushed — not only in the sense of “this is our fourth album in three years” but in the sense of “we didn’t even have time to properly grammatically title our tracks.” Again, for Death Grips this shouldn’t be surprising: if they want to release a half-finished sounding record at any given moment, they probably will. And yeah, there are moments on Government Plates that definitely make me want to trash the house. But mainly I’m left disappointed, wondering what could have been.