Drive It Like It’s Stolen (DILIS) is Arizona rap group Injury Reserve’s second EP. Following 2015’s Live From the Dentist’s Office and 2016’s Floss, Injury Reserve stepped away from the dental theme with the release of DILIS. Injury Reserve also chose to take a much more solemn, understated direction with this project.
The EP starts off with several classic braggadocious rap tracks, but with a bit of a nostalgic twist. The group has quite a few tracks along these lines on their previous project, namely “Oh Shit!!!” and “S On Ya Chest”. Yet with this release, they don’t seem to be going for the same effect, instead talking about their troubled past. In severa verses, they speak of the ways their lives have improved, but also how they’ve stayed the same. This shows up a lot in the track “‘91 Cadillac Deville”, especially with Stepa J. Groggs’s line “Finally getting love from the music I’m releasing/And frontin’ like we own my new whip/I’m still leasing.” Despite these moments of humility, the front half of the EP is still largely a compilation of brags.
This dynamic completely shifts with the back half of the EP, starting with the track “North Pole” featuring Austin Feinstein, who does the hook and guitar. The track features an extremely emotional verse from Ritchie with a T, leaving a voicemail to his friend who died presumably from a drug overdose. This track is by far one of the best of the EP, and one of the most heartbreaking songs I’ve heard this year. This same sentiment is continued on the track Colors, except focusing more on the persecution of minorities in the United States, as well as Groggsie considering his own mortality as a black man. The inconsistent, pulsing beats and clanky percussion give the track a more hopeless, foreboding feeling.
The issue that arises with this EP is in their overall presentation. Although this release is just an EP, it feels like an underdeveloped album to me. The themes crafted on each song are intriguing, but seven tracks over 23 minutes just simply is not enough to fully flesh them out. The EP goes from braggadocio, to sadness and depression, to come full circle on the outro, Chin Up, where Groggsie and Ritchie essentially ditch the ideas presented on Colors, and give a call to action for the listener to stay positive. To me, this just seems like they couldn’t deal with creating a full LP and rushed out DILIS.