[Reaper16]

18. Death Grips – Government Plates



Ah, Death Grips. They put out my #16 and #1 albums last year. Yes, in case you forgot, I thought and still do think that The Money Store is a better album (barely) than Kendrick Lamar’s Good Kid…m.A.A.d. City. Their new album starts off as a natural progression from No Love Deep Web. It’s unrelentingly aggressive and paranoid. MC Ride doesn’t drop bars so much as he pleads to the voices inside his head. The samples sound invasive. If No Love Deep Web sounded like being under drone surveillance, then Government Plates sounds like the drones attacking you. For the first half anyway. Then it becomes looser, more spaced out. Death Grips start experimenting with texture in new ways, and I find the songcraft to drop off with it. I don’t need Death Grips to be high-energy all the time. But what separates a good album like Government Plates from an all-time classic like The Money Store is craft. Catchiness. An olive branch given towards pop sensibilities. This album lacks that olive branch, but it doesn’t lack for memorable material.