Death Grips - Government Plates

Whether or not this actually is their third studio album, it feels weird that an act as new and fresh as Death Grips are already at that third stage. Following their progress since The Money Store (and I'm sure that's far too late on for me to have an opinion, for some people) has been entertaining to say the least: whether acting like dicks or photographing them, the band are probably the most talked-about right now. They've always had the material to back it up, though: The Money Store is by far their strongest album, and NO LOVE DEEP WEB had plenty of stand-out moments that make it more fun to listen to than the debut. A year on from that, though, and the usual downward spiral of backlash, trend-followers finding other new flavours, and label complaints has left their second surprise release greeted a little lukewarmly.

In a 2013 Autumn that was all about sudden releases (behave) - a month exactly before the Beyoncé spectacle - perhaps the biggest talking point was how crazier the actual music was. MC Ride almost takes the backseat on this record, and that's not necessarily a hindrance. It does mean, though, that Government Plates needs some punchy beats to pull it off.

'You Might Think...' is quite the right way to go about kicking off such a project, then: a glass breaks, a shrill alarm goes off and Ride screams and has a bit of a manic episode on the music video. It careers around noisily and excitingly before the kinda subdued 'Anne Bonny' asks him to take over fully whilst someone goes and recharges the batteries. "Can't wait to fuck my brain/ all I need to forget is today" he shrugs, whilst on 'Two Heavens' there's talk of someone being smothered with a pillow and "waving high burning freak fuck flags". For much of the first half of the record there's not really a lot happening past that first track: 'This is Violence Now (Don't Get Me Wrong)' basically boasts its entire lyric in its title and contains little else than a stuttering vocal sample, some laser sound effects and a shitload of reverb. It's not the most engaging track.

Maybe preceding the album's first glimpse, 'Birds', doesn't help: Birds was extremely promising when it surfaced back in August and is an uncompromising, off-key, grinding and whining stand-out. The theory it's about Twitter is quite interesting: Ride's first verse is a slow, mock-stupid brag about "I'm not trying to use my mind" and the outro "I got higher, I got fake" could quite easibly be about modern fame's compromising and fleeting aspects. For all of my complaints about repetitive samples not really going anywhere, 'Feels Like a Wheel' is quite fun - but 'I'm Overflow' has a lot more going on and sets up the frenetic 'Big House' and its insane, sped-up techno intro nicely.

The thing is, once you've got past all those quite nice sounds (the title track is another similarly great instrumental with some rebel lyrics glued on) there's not a terrible deal going on. 'Bootleg' is obviously aimed squarely at their former record label with its subtitle "I don't need your help" but really? With all the anger and fury going on elsewhere on Government Plates you'd be forgiven for expecting a better diss track. At 7 minutes, 'Whatever I Want (Fuck Who's Watching)' certainly goes through the motions but honestly it could just as easily be an assortment of beats they wanted to use but forgot to until now.

There's no denying its primal energy and it's an album ready to slap you about; it'd just be nice if it weren't so unlistenable at times. Death Grips are clearly more concerned with pushing boundaries than recording great music, which I guess is their appeal to most fans, but right now they've already done enough to make themselves heard without this and what they need to make sure of is that there's material to make them remembered down the years as well as their antics.

Rating: 6/10
Highlights: Birds; Big House; You Might Think...; I'm Overflow; Government Plates
Avoid: Anne Bonny; Bootleg

Artwork Watch: I miss the dick.
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