The Money Store by Death Grips

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.

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.

Despite the unwelcoming persona, repeated listens will uncover an embarrassment of spine-tingling details and hidden corners that any headphone enthusiast will revel in.

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 thrusts countless adjectives towards the listener. It's eccentric, confrontational, disorientating. Crucially, however, it's fresh.

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, 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.

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.

Certainly the most unique record that I've come across in recent times.

They don't let up for a single second, and with that they've created one of the most polarizing, destructive, villainous, and surprisingly catchiest releases of the year.

Unfathomably amazing, I'll never listen to music the same way again.

Absolutely spectacular.