It is a Death Grips record, simple as; a completely successful experiment in isolating artistry from external pressures to produce an artefact that will inform pioneers-to-come.
A blistering, feral and intense second album from a band who show no signs of selling out.
The Money Store is an important record that's also compelling, loaded with kinetic blows against the empire and fully stuffed with that attractive maverick spirit.
The Money Store is a tense and violently energising record which is relentlessly unforgiving – if anyone doesn’t get it then they’re left in the musical dark ages, such is its game-changing majesty.
The Money Store might be the very definition of acquired taste, and will most likely alienate the vast majority who attempt to give it a spin, but it's undeniably an extraordinary record.
These tracks work best when they invade your headspace, not your airspace. You want to get close to these tracks to admire the handiwork of producer Flatlander, who shines on The Money Store even more than he did on Death Grips excellent 2011 mixtape Exmilitary. It’s exquisite stuff, delivered with a sledgehammer.
Despite the unwelcoming persona, repeated listens will uncover an embarrassment of spine-tingling details and hidden corners that any headphone enthusiast will revel in.
The Money Store thrusts countless adjectives towards the listener. It's eccentric, confrontational, disorientating. Crucially, however, it's fresh.
Death Grips have managed to situate themselves in a unique and peculiar territory in which they are both peerless and able to appeal to fans of almost everything.
‘The Money Store’ is a modern, breathing nightmare. It’s hyper real hip-hop made just in time for the end of the world.
Sometimes this hands-off approach backfires, but Death Grips have actual designs to be left to, and The Money Store is a million-mph blur of ideas.
The Money Store is simultaneously fun and torturous, just melodic enough to keep listeners on board even as its extremes border on cruel.
The Money Store isn’t the kind of thing that rewards repeated listening, it rewards those listens the same way any disposable, temporary rush rewards the brain. It is nothing more—or less—than just a great, fun record.
The Money Store, fits into modern hip-hop like a square peg on fire, a 40-minute straitjacket tantrum of vein-popping, slow-flow barks closer to Helmet's Page Hamilton than Harlem's Charles Hamilton.
Once you get used to the fact that they’re fuming, you’ll thrill to the raw, fractured, incessant and apocalyptic barrage of noise as Death Grips prepare for the end of the world.
The Money Store is also carefully, meticulously composed, not the slapdash punk blast it appears to be. This makes the chaos at its center seem intimate and familiar, never merely foreign.
On Exmilitary, Death Grips played liked sonic terrorism, a group bending hip-hop to be as brusque and frightening as noise rock. On The Money Store, they play like an electronic group that happens to have a deranged rapper as its front man. The difference is subtle, but important.
Certainly it’s far from an easy listen, and only those familiar with their earlier catalogue will be able to pick it up right away.
The trio’s very existence depends on toeing a line between maintaining rap’s brooding thuggish-ness without overpowering it with their dubstep-inspired aesthetic.
It’s hard to glean any sense of intention, let alone manifesto, from the lyrics, and the manner in which it’s presented is, in the end, alienating.
Burnett's one-note anger may be fine for those who fetishise the punk-rock mode of expression, but the near-total lack of range in his vocal approach is a poor match for the careening thrill of the music, and wearyingly basic.
Essentially, The Money Store is pseudo-intellectual music for non-hip hop fans. It attempts to present a curious combination of genre-bending ideas, yet falls into a very simple category of poorly executed shock rap.
Reminds me of my wife. She was always smoking rock, and she was constantly sick with a fever... Might've been an STD, but I ain't stopping her prostitution game! She's mighty good at it.
I was so ready to call this thing overrated... but the experimentation catches me off guard with every occasional listen.
It's a sentient piece of art that might steal all your shit if you look at it the wrong way.
1 | Get Got 2:51 | 95 |
2 | The Fever (Aye Aye) 3:06 | 93 |
3 | Lost Boys 3:06 | 88 |
4 | Blackjack 2:22 | 86 |
5 | Hustle Bones 3:12 | 93 |
6 | I've Seen Footage 3:22 | 95 |
7 | Double Helix 2:40 | 88 |
8 | System Blower 3:48 | 90 |
9 | The Cage 3:31 | 88 |
10 | Punk Weight 3:24 | 91 |
11 | Fuck That 2:24 | 82 |
12 | Bitch Please 2:56 | 89 |
13 | Hacker 4:35 | 96 |
#1 | / | The Needle Drop |
#2 | / | Time Out London |
#3 | / | No Ripcord |
#4 | / | Clash |
#6 | / | BBC |
#8 | / | The 405 |
#9 | / | Pitchfork |
#15 | / | The Wire |
#16 | / | Consequence of Sound |
#16 | / | Tiny Mix Tapes |