Jobie's Bite-Sized Music Reviews #28: Exmilitary (mixtape) - Death Grips
- arrangednoisefan
- Jun 9, 2022
- 2 min read
Recommended
Exmilitary is a 2011 rap rock mixtape from the experimental hip hop group Death Grips. It is their first and (as of June 9th, 2022) only mixtape, and is also the earliest work of theirs still up for download on the thirdworlds.net website. The mixtape's sound can best be described as an early precursor to both The Money Store and No Love Deep Web, being a sort of mixture between the sounds of those albums, with some of the electronic elements present on The Money Store and a good portion of the more bass-y sound present on No Love Deep Web. The mixtape features the group's first instrumental track, “Cut Throat (Instrumental)”, featuring hard-hitting bass, harsh electronic beats, and scattered vocalizations from MC Ride. This track forecasts the direction that later instrumental-only Death Grips songs would take, and is early proof of the ability of Death Grips to sound great, even when there are little or no lyrics present on their chaotic instrumentals. Like other Death Grips releases, this mixtape explores a variety of different flavors and textures of instrumentals – compare the song “Beware” to “I Want it I Need It” to see what I mean. The fact that Death Grips has kept this property of their released works consistent for over a decade is an accomplishment, and proves that the group is unlikely to run out of sonic space to explore anytime soon. The mixtape has a complimentary set of instrumentals, acapellas, and stems, collectively called Black Google, available for free on the band's website. The fact that the group specifically released Black Google for their audience to play around with their work further proves the fact that Death Grips is no ordinary experimental hip hop group, consistently standing out among other artists. My favorite tracks from Exmilitary are “Guillotine”, “Klink”, “Known for It”, and “I Want it I Need It (Death Heated)”. Overall, Exmilitary is an excellent mixtape from Death Grips. Its main significance, 11 years after its release, is proving that, even since the groups' early days, they've managed to keep several properties of their work consistent; constantly exploring the sonic space, serving up several different flavors and textures of instrumentals, and standing out among other artists.
Internet Archive link (if you're concerned about the fact that this file is hosted on the Internet Archive, and could've been uploaded without the artist's permission – this link was on the official website; it is therefore safe to assume that the band endorses this method of listening to their mixtape. The other link on their website doesn't work, so it will have to do, for now):
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