Well, well, just last year around the time Death Grips released their amazing double able The Powers That B, I would of told you that it was the group's swan-song. After all, once you've released some of the most groundbreaking and boundary pushing hip-hop music of the decade and punked not only your former label (yeah, these guys were on Epic at some point) and your fans (releasing albums out of the blue, shooting music videos that are mostly silence, or cut in with obnoxious noise), there's not much else you can do... except come back a year later with another fantastic release like you never broke up in the first place!
Enter, Bottomless Pit, an album that came after not only the 'break up' but also comes after an instrumental release (which I enjoyed, but didn't commit to listening to enough for a review) and a series of progressively weird Youtube videos and promotion tools (the band has a hotline you can call if you want to listen to the song "Trash"). All that aside; is it any good? Well, I kind of spoiled that one, but let me restate myself: Bottomless Pit is fantastic.
The guys haven't put together an album this skittery and off kilter since No Love, and they continue to push a more punk based sound that was prominent on Powers That B. The opener is a perfect example of this with it's incredibly loud and crunchy guitar riffs that aim to shred every fiber in your ear canal. But as I said before, this album is also really jittery and frantic, such as the track "Spikes" which reminds me of stuff from No Love, but even more twisted, and the track "Warping" pushes that sound as well.
However, this album also has sounds that really distinguish it from previous Death Grips releases, such as my personal favorite track "Eh" which keeps things cool for the first half until it explodes into pure aggression. In fact, it is worth mentioning that MC Ride is really scaling his entire range on this album; you'll get more pensive, moody performances followed by some of his most manic.
Finally, I should probably mention the lyrics... which are just brutal. Especially on the title track, which may be the filthiest song about sex that Death Grips have ever written, and that's coming off some of their raunchiest moments on the last album. However, for the most part, Ride is pretty legible on this record, and manages to deliver some hellishly good hooks and refrains; especially on tracks such as "Bubbles Buried In This Jungle" or "Trash".
That all being said, this album isn't 100% all killer no filler, the only weaker link being "BB Poison" which is good, but not nearly as memorable as the rest of the album (kind of reminds me of "Pop" from No Love in that way), but other than that and the fact that I personally would of loved for the album to have a couple more tracks, Bottomless Pit was definitely worth the emotional torment...
9.2/10
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