RYAN MITCHELL

Death Grips get lots of love from the crowd.

Death Grips, in my not-so-humble opinion, are the single best thing to happen to rap since “Party and Bullshit” by the Notorious B.I.G.

The experimental hip-hop trio from Sacramento, Calif., makes rap sinister and abrasive in a way I have never heard done before, with a noisy, heavy electronic beat.

Death Grips’ most recent release, No Love Deep Web, is one of the most aggressive LPs that the group has ever released. The band leaked the album on Oct. 1, resulting in a fight between the group and their record label, Epic. The disagreement culminated with the group being ejected from the label’s roster.

No Love Deep Web is much more stripped down than the last two Death Grips releases, Ex-Military and The Money Store.

The trio’s production team, Zach Hill and Andy Morin — who perform drums and keyboards, respectively, during the group’s live shows — used fewer samples in No Love Deep Web than the previous albums, allowing the tracks to focus more on vocalist Stefan “MC Ride” Burnett.

With bigger focus on MC Ride, this record may well be my favourite as it is probably the darkest and most intense of the three. It is unnerving, taking Death Grips’ tendency to focus on madness and drug-induced destruction of oneself and others to the next level.

The album begins with a strong, electronic vibe on the track “Come Up and Get Me” before MC Ride kicks in and takes the forefront. The lyrics on this LP really set the stage for what you will experience on the album: “My life as a fuck / ain’t one thing I don’t hate / put your gun to my head / I’ll blow smoke in your face.” The album hits you like a locomotive.

The album’s two title tracks are the epitome of the sinister feeling the record gives off. “No Love,” is an intimidating beast filled with imagery of torture and with a heavy, lumbering beat behind it. The other title track, “Deep Web,” reminds me of tracks from the old Mortal Kombat games.

“Hunger Games” is one of the most interesting tracks. Its weird, off-tempo beat perfectly compliments Ride’s tense, paranoid lyrics about schizophrenia and his “off my meds glitch.”

New Love Deep Web only suffers a bit near the end of the album with tracks like “Pop,” which has a rather weak hook.

The album finishes strong, however, with the abstract “Artificial Death in the West.” The track is a nice, relatively calm conclusion to the much more psychotic pace of the rest of the album.

Despite being more toned down in its sound than previous efforts by the group, the album is still terrifying in all the ways you want it to be. No Love Deep Web is an incredibly enjoyable jaunt into the very worst of us. If you don’t enjoy it I suggest you go to the hospital because there’s something wrong with you.

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Photo: Libertinus/Flickr