The Powers That B

The Powers That B is the fourth studio album by Death Grips, released on March 31, 2015 through Harvest Records and Third Worlds. A double album, it consists of two discs: Niggas on the Moon (released as a surprise free download on June 8, 2014, roughly three weeks before the band's public breakup announcement) and Jenny Death (officially released March 31, 2015, after leaking on 4chan's music board in mid-March). The gap between the two discs -- spanning the band's announced dissolution, a cryptic trolling instrumental album, and eventual return -- is itself part of the work's meaning.

Niggas on the Moon features all instrumentation performed on a Roland V-Drum kit by Zach Hill, with extensive use of chopped vocal samples from Bjork. Bjork publicly confirmed the collaboration the day after the album dropped, posting on social media to say she was thrilled and that she adored Death Grips. Jenny Death was recorded at Sunset Sound Studios in Los Angeles and features guitarist Nick Reinhart of Tera Melos and organist Julian Imsdahl, producing a rawer and more guitar-forward sound than the first disc. Between the two discs, Death Grips released Fashion Week (January 2015), an instrumental album whose track titles spelled out "JENNY DEATH WHEN" in sequence, trolling fans who had been awaiting disc two.

The sole lead single, "Inanimate Sensation," was released in December 2014 -- five months after the breakup announcement and the first new Death Grips material since it. Its music video, set in an empty arena around a crashed jumbotron, arrived as both a teaser for Jenny Death and a statement about technological spectacle collapsing inward.

Pitchfork awarded the combined release an 8.4/10, calling it the band's most emotionally affecting and compositionally advanced work to that point. The album debuted at No. 72 on the Billboard 200 and No. 8 on Rap Albums. It is widely regarded as the conclusion of Death Grips' first creative arc, with the closing track -- the purely instrumental "Death Grips 2.0" -- functioning as the ambiguous epilogue to the band's declared ending.