Review: Death Grips at Union Transfer

Much like its music, Death Grips' show at sold-out Union Transfer on Friday night felt like many things. Was this a punk or scream-o show in a West Philly basement? The high point of a metal fest? We were as jammed together as the genres that the band ably melds, with front man MC Ride, a.k.a. Stefan Burnett, overtaking seemingly every last soul from go, his presence up there with the fugue-state transcendence Matt Berninger delivers at shows for the National.

Alternating between a lithe, swaying lilt and an explosive two-handed elbows-up hold on the microphone, MC Ride was the embodiment of the lines from "Takyon" (off the Exmilitary mix tape) that got us going early on: "Triple six, five, forked tongue / Subatomic penetration, rapid fire through your skull / How I shot it on one taking it back to the days of trying to lose control?"

He was that compelling unknown figure, aggressively urging to shed convention, though in the back half of the room his lyrics were a bit muddled. The emotion carried as he jumped with the crowd, commanding an army with deep-seated shouts on "Inanimate Sensation" (from The Powers That B).

Producer Andy Morin and drummer Zach Hill backed him through a catalog of the band's influences - to call Death Grips a hip-hop trio is lazier than using the alternative label. Early on, Hill's drumming clearly helped supply the band's punk aesthetic. His work in conjunction with, not contrasting with, Morin's electronic effects gave their sound incredible depth. Best: when the buzzing, looping takeoff Morin provided on "Inanimate Sensation" was overlaid with staccato drumming that raucously ripped from the tether of its pattern.

Noise. Industrial. Electronic. All there. But while Death Grips can pull elements from Autechre, Aphex Twin, and the Prodigy while adding intense immediacy, perhaps Morin's greatest trick was making it seem that there was a guitar player hidden in the shadows, the guitar loops even going ponderous before picking up into punk, metal, and hard rock frenzies as the landscape shifted, song to song or moment to moment - many microclimates inside each track.

MC Ride's persona was fluid, the breakneck pace allowing little introspection. His words became much more discernible as I got closer and closer, his delivery summed up on "Guillotine": "Hidden art, between and beneath every fragmented figure of speech. / Tongue in reverse, whenever the beat causes my jaws to call . . ."