Sacramento’s experimental hip hop heroes Death Grips finally release the second album they promised this year, NO LOVE DEEP WEB; however, it doesn’t seem to be according to the original plan, which was to have their new record label, Epic, put out the album sometime in the fall of 2012. According to the band’s Twitter account, Epic wouldn’t confirm a 2012 release date for NLDW, pushing the album’s release well into 2013. Death grips seems to have stepped around this by leaking the album themselves on SoundCloud, YouTube, their own website, and numerous filesharing platforms such as Mediafire.

And the NSFW cover? You can figure that out for yourself…

As great as it is to hear the album, question do come up. Is the label really not OK with this? If record sales and bottom lines are Epic’s focus, then it would in their best interest to put a stop to all of this, right? Being the major label that they are, I’d think they’d have the power to flip the switch on this if they liked. Was Death Grips able to retain the right to disseminate their music as they please in their contract? Will this effect any official release plans for NLDW? We’ll see, won’t we?