vinylfanatics.com

**Death Grips - Year of the Snitch: The Final Act of Digital Chaos**

After nearly a decade of sonic terrorism and calculated chaos, Death Grips has carved out a throne in experimental hip-hop that nobody else dares approach. While 2012's "The Money Store" remains their magnum opus—a perfect storm of MC Ride's unhinged vocals, Zach Hill's percussive violence, and Andy Morin's digital alchemy—their 2018 swan song "Year of the Snitch" proves that even in their supposed final hour, the Sacramento trio refuses to go quietly into that good night.

The lead-up to "Year of the Snitch" was vintage Death Grips: cryptic, confrontational, and completely unpredictable. Following their characteristic pattern of career self-sabotage and resurrection, the group had already "broken up" once in 2014, only to return with a vengeance. By 2018, rumors swirled that this would be their final statement, a notion that seemed both inevitable and impossible for a band that had spent years defying every convention of the music industry. They'd already no-showed festivals, leaked their own albums, and turned press interviews into performance art pieces—what was left but the ultimate disappearing act?

Musically, "Year of the Snitch" finds Death Grips pushing their industrial hip-hop formula into even stranger territories. Where "The Money Store" and "No Love Deep Web" established their blueprint of crushing beats and apocalyptic rap, this album feels like watching that blueprint get fed through a paper shredder and reassembled by someone having a fever dream. The production is simultaneously their most polished and most unhinged, featuring everything from jazz saxophone to what sounds like dial-up internet having an anxiety attack.

The album's standout tracks showcase the full spectrum of Death Grips' controlled insanity. "Flies" opens the record with MC Ride's vocals processed through what can only be described as digital purgatory, while a saxophone wails like a dying animal over Hill's characteristic drum patterns. It's immediately disorienting and absolutely captivating. "Hahaha" lives up to its title with Ride's maniacal laughter punctuating verses that feel like being trapped inside a malfunctioning arcade machine. Meanwhile, "Black Paint" strips things down to a hypnotic groove that's as close to conventional as Death Grips gets—which is to say, not very close at all.

But it's "Streaky" that might represent the album's creative peak, featuring a guest appearance from experimental musician Lucas Abela that transforms the track into something resembling a conversation between competing mental breakdowns. The song lurches between moments of near-silence and explosive chaos, perfectly encapsulating the band's ability to make tension itself into an instrument.

The album's title track serves as perhaps the most fitting thesis statement for Death Grips' entire career. "Year of the Snitch" is paranoid, aggressive, and completely uncompromising—everything that made them essential listening for anyone seeking music that actually sounds dangerous in an increasingly sanitized cultural landscape. Ride's lyrics remain as cryptically apocalyptic as ever, painting pictures of surveillance states and digital dystopias that feel increasingly prophetic.

What sets "Year of the Snitch" apart from their earlier work isn't just its supposed finality, but how it synthesizes nearly every experimental impulse the band had explored across their discography. Elements of the crushing heaviness from "No Love Deep Web," the sample-heavy collages of "Exmilitary," and the refined chaos of "The Money Store" all surface throughout these thirteen tracks, creating something that feels both like a greatest hits collection and a completely new beast.

If this truly is Death Grips' final statement, they've chosen to go out exactly as they lived: on their own terms, in their own time, and in the most confrontational way possible. "Year of the Snitch" doesn't offer closure so much as it offers one last middle finger to anyone expecting conventional endings. In a music landscape increasingly dominated by playlist-friendly singles and algorithm-optimized content, Death Grips created something that actively resists easy consumption.

Whether they stay broken up or inevitably return for another round of beautiful destruction, "Year of the Snitch" stands as a worthy capstone to one of the most uncompromising artistic statements in recent memory. It's abrasive, brilliant, and absolutely essential—everything we've come to expect from hip-hop's most notorious saboteurs.