Making good on a promise to fulfill the tour dates they abruptly cancelled this spring, Death Grips brought a brutally intense live show to a packed house at the Magic Stick on Monday night. In support of their controversial new album, NO LOVE DEEP WEB, Death Grips are arguably the most intense and innovative group to arrive in 2012. MC Ride and percussionist Zach Hill threw down a mesmorizing 45 minute attack of non-stop, electro-tribal beats and terrifying lyrical delivery. It was a hot, sweaty, throbbing mass of energy punctuated by Hill's intense live drums as Ride dipped and writhed across the stage deliver his verbal assualt.
The mass chaos at stage level was a bit arresting, but few acts can deliver such an uniquely honset and soulcrushing performance like Death Grips. It's like a post-apocalyptic survivor from the future has come back to warn us about what hell is like. And the audience was completely connected to the vibe, dancing and thrashing with a strange joy. MC Ride (aka Stefan Burnett) delivers his craft with an intensity that is unrivaled by any performer I have ever seen. Shirtless, tatooed and dripping with sweat, as he chanted out lyrics like a voodoo priest, Burnett seemed to rise above the stage as some larger than life ghostly entity draped in red light.
This is the spirit of punk-rock, alive and well in 2012. It's raw, it's intense, it's a little bit dangerous. And the crowd was as diverse as it gets, all ages, all colors, boys and girls all into it, going balls-out nuts on a Monday night. You can trace the influences back to hip-hop or noise-rock, but Death Grips has created a decimated sonic landscape of their own, and we were all invited to live in it for just a short time.
