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Injury Reserve is the eponymous debut studio album by American experimental rap group Injury Reserve, released on May 17, 2019 by Loma Vista and Seneca Village Records. The album follows their three previous projects, Live from the Dentist Office (2015), Floss (2016) and Drive it Like It's Stolen (2017). It is the only studio album released before founding member Stepa J. Groggs' death. A majority of the songs on Injury Reserve were recorded at the group's home studio in Flagstaff, Arizona in January–February 2018. Production contributions during the Flagstaff sessions came from Melikxyz, Kyambo "Hip Hop" Joshua and Technician. The album was finished at Prague in sessions dating from June–July 2018. The album features guest appearances from A-Trak, Rico Nasty, Pro Teens, JPEGMafia, Cakes da Killa, Aminé, Freddie Gibbs, DRAM, Tony Velour and Dylan Brady.

The album's title was. The cover art was taken by Matt Kaplan and shows the three members sitting in a field while a laser is beamed to the right of them.

The album was supported with three singles, "Jailbreak the Tesla", "Jawbreaker", with the album being announced alongside the release of the third single; "Koruna & Lime". Upon release, the album received generally favourable reviews. The album also charted on the Heatseekers Albums chart a few weeks after release.

Background
By 2018, American experimental rap group Injury Reserve had released three commercial projects. The first two, Live from the Dentist Office (2015) and Floss (2016) were recorded in producer Parker Corey's grandfather's dental office; recording would be done at night, when all the patients had left.

Recording
The group recorded in multiple different locations. From January 15 to February 8, 2018, Injury Reserve moved to a house in Flagstaff, Arizona. From June 7 to July 7, 2018, they recorded in Prague. According to the album's liner notes, songs were recorded in three other locations: Tempe, Arizona, New York City and Los Angeles.

January–February 2018: Flagstaff sessions
In January 2018, the group moved from Phoenix, Arizona to a home studio in Flagstaff, bringing all of their studio equipment with them. According to Corey, the setup was inspired by the rap camp used in the production for Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (2010).

Most of the songs on the album were recorded on the first week: these include "Jailbreak the Tesla", "Wax On" and "New Hawaii".

Post-recording edits
The beginning of "Koruna & Lime" initially contained a sample of a Nicki Minaj clip where she says "You bitches can't even spell Prague", referencing the location it was recorded in. In retrospect, producer Melikxyz said to Complex, "I wish it could’ve stayed, but I think it still worked out for the best." Groggs' verse on that song was originally intended for "Gravy & Biscuits", but was moved to "Koruna & Lime" once the bridge/chorus was created. Ritchie's verse from the scrapped song recorded in Flagstaff titled "Geek Squad" featuring Tony Velour on the hook; Ritchie described it as being "all over the place."

The original version of "What A Year It's Been" contained a hook in between the first and second verse. It was removed right before the album was turned in because, as Ritchie put it, "it felt too fake epic". he elaborated by saying that cutting those hooks "helped the message resonate a little more." In the mixing of the album, which lasted from until around August 2018, the song was mixed four seperate times.

Musical style
The album has been described as experimental rap. According to Mike Vinti of The Quietus, the album blends the industrial experimentation of artists like Death Grips and JPEGMafia, with elements of boom bap and old school hip hop. The group themselves felt that a full-length album would allow them to express a wider range of emotions. Ritchie with a T explained in an interview with Loud and Quiet that their mindset couldn't be put in a three minute song.

Tracks 1-7
The album opens with third and final single "Koruna and Lime"

"Jawbreaker"

"GTFU"

"Jailbreak the Tesla". "Rap Song Tutorial"

Tracks 8-13
"Wax On" contains chimes that were described by Jamie Haworth as having a "jittery, paranoid quality".

When it comes to the arrangement of the album, Ritchie says that he was inspired by Earl Sweatshirt's Some Rap Songs (2018) in the arrangement of the hooks on "What A Year It's Been". The album ending, "Three Man Weave", was described as a "feel-good success anthem".

Lyrical themes
In Chris Deville's review of Injury Reserve's second studio album By the Time I Get to Phoenix, he notes that "Jailbreak the Tesla" outlines a "customised futurist manifesto".

Artwork and title
The cover art, taken by Matt Kaplan and designed by Parker Corey, shows the three group members sitting in a field in Malibu with a green laser beaming near them to the left. According to Corey, The inspiration for the album artwork came from the Hartmut Skerbisch work "Laserstahl".

In the group's interview with Complex News, Ritchie explains that the album has the ambition and personality of their previous works, while also featuring technical approach. He added by saying: "This is the music we're trying to make, and that's why putting the name on it is both refreshing [and] telling."

Release
The first single on the album, Jawbreaker, was released on January 24, 2019. On March 21, 2019, Injury Reserve released the second single from the album, "Jailbreak the Tesla", uploading a music video on YouTube the same day. A month later on April 18, 2019, Injury Reserve announced that the album would be released on May 17, dropping the third and final single from the album, "Koruna & Lime", on that same day.

All singles were released with music videos.

In the week marked July 6, 2019, Injury Reserve charted at number 14 on Billboard's Heatseekers Albums chart, spending only one week on the chart.

Critical reception
Critical reception to Injury Reserve was generally favorable. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from professional publications, the album earned a score of 75 out of 100, based on 7 reviews. Aggregator AnyDecentMusic? gave it 7.7 out of 10, based on their assessment of the critical consensus.

Much of the praise was directed at Corey's production. In a positive review for the album, Chris Dart of Exclaim! called him "Injury Reserve's real driving force", and Kyle Kohner of The 405 wrote that Corey "mix[es] things up with some of the most wonky-sounding production you will hear outside of Death Grips", while also comparing it to PC Music acts such as Sophie.

Sheldon Pearce was more reserved in his assessment for Pitchfork, giving the album a 6.8/10, and wrote that while the album feels "remarkably fresh and singular" when Corey is at his best, "neither Ritchie nor Stepa are particularly groundbreaking MCs" and that they are both "regularly shown up by their guests". He concluded that Injury Reserve "gets stuck between its experimental urges and its pop ambitions" too often, calling the album "never quite noisy enough or quite catchy enough". In his review for The Quietus, Vinti said that the album "encompasses everything great about the last forty years of rap music while simultaneously managing to sound totally distinct from it. Haworth mentions in his interview with the group that the album is defined "as much by its sincerity and its humour." Colin Joyce of Vice states that the group adopts "a rap-smarter-not-harder approach."

Track listing
Adapted from liner notes. All songs are produced by Injury Reserve unless noted.

Samples
 * "GTFU" contains a sample of "Aeons", written by M. Te Kahika and D. Wright, performed by Electric Wire Hustle
 * "What a Year It's Been" contains samples of "13 Angels Standing Guard 'Round the Side of Your Bed" by Silver Mt. Zion.

Personnel
Adapted from liner notes.


 * Jeff Ellis - mixing
 * Efran Hajy - assistant mixing
 * Mike Bozzi - mastering
 * A-Trak - scratch (1)
 * Yazmeen Al-Mazeedi - strings (12)
 * Stephen "Jonah" Feigenbaum - string arrangement (12)
 * Phonte - ad-libs (13)
 * Injury Reserve – Executive producer
 * Nick Herbert – Executive producer
 * Kyambo "Hip Hop" Joshua – Executive producer

Packaging
 * Matt Kaplan - artwork
 * Parker Corey - artwork design