Within the discography, Steroids stands out as one of the most extreme pieces whether in length, sound, or lyrics.

Ever since I first got interested in Death Grips' lyrics, I've always seen Steroids as a kind of motto, a manifesto, a confession from the band. More than just a collection of songs, I read it as a moment where Death Grips lays bare its identity, its philosophy, and the kind of relationship it wants to have with whoever's listening.

I understand Death Grips as an entity. A behavior that certain esoteric traditions would call an egregoric entity or a collective mind. I don't think one can try to ignore the events that occurred, and the connection that was made. In fact, I firmly believe it; it's not just Ride's tattoos that draw attention. There is an entire symbology and references to Freemasonry that make me think Zach, at the very least, is a Freemason and Ride is an evoker and practitioner of dark magic. I actually believe they worked in tandem with Ariana Grande to carry out what happened. I will try to interpret and analyze the lyrics of Steroids in their entirety, something I haven't seen many do except for the original post out there about Manchester. But it skips or doesn't talk much about certain things.
I don't think it's a coincidence that their most recent album (so far) is called Year of the Snitch they're their own informants.

I apologize if something is unclear; I'm using a translator to translate this text into English.

Section 1

My whole life, my whole fuckin' life
Your whole life, your whole fuckin' life

The subject recognizes the other, but does so from a position that is still separate, as if Ride's existence and the listener's were connected, yet he continues to perceive them as distinct things. It establishes the separation and then seems to dissolve it presenting the shift from individual consciousness toward something collective.

Slippery when panickin', this seems like surfin' gasoline

It's a risky move, then. Gasoline is flammable.

We're the same as you, but we know we're fucked

We're the same as you, but we've reached a realization that you haven't.

I've got countless current identities

It doesn't say he had, it says he has. These are happening now.

Which one should I pretend to be?

Maybe there's no central "self" to return to. There are countless simultaneous versions: Ride, Stefan, MC Ride, Death Grips, digital avatar, the image each fan projects onto him, and so on. So which one is the real one? The answer would be none of them on their own. It's a non-local entity.
A government can go on even after its leaders die.
A religion can survive centuries past its founders.
The structure keeps working because its existence doesn't fully depend on a single body.

Fuck my present coordinates

Obviously, coordinates are what allow something to be located, but the voice wants to abandon location altogether.

fuck you want from us?

The obvious explanation would be Death Grips as the three members. But the song had already been talking about:
Countless identities. Pretending to be one. My whole life. Your whole life.
Death Grips speaks as a collective personality.

And your mind, not you

It doesn't need the listener it needs their mind. A memetic entity needs to occupy something.

Cut one, spill revelations, it's fucked
Center seal of my imagination, fucked

Forehead of mine submergin', I'm sinkin'

The forehead is associated with inner vision, the third eye, perception, and so on.

Noah's Ark, blood's virgin, stop thinkin'

What had been sinking now rises back to the surface, but over virgin blood. An image that blends birth, sacrifice, and purification.

"As above, so below" descent and ascent are two sides of the same process. Sinking is the condition for rising. Solve et coagula (a core Masonic motto).

See now?

A revelation meant to be experienced intuitively, not rationalized.

Your write-offs belong to vultures, my whole life like vultures

[Outro]
This ghost town's my compound, I'm a saboteur
Your town's my smoke cloud, I stay at war

I have a sealed territory. You have one that smoke can invade. The entity doesn't need to physically occupy your city — it's enough to blanket it, and it does that through the reproduction of its music.

I met you and your carne asada to cry

Carne asada is literally "roast meat." Now we know her it was inevitable that we'd get to her after Manchester.

Fuck everything, now go ahead and pay us for my shrine

US and MY, plural and singular. The song's title itself might help explain this line. Steroids a substance that artificially accelerates growth. It forces an already-existing organism to become an extreme version of itself, faster.

Birch wood emoji wrought with human branches

The line speaks for itself, even more so if we consider the origin of emojis.

And I've been like this for my whole fucking life
My whole fucking life's your whole fucking life

Ride has always been connected to something beyond, and the same is true now for the listener.

Section 2

(Panic, panic, panic, panic)

Rational consciousness loses its footing it's not describing an experience, it's trying to pull the listener inside it.

You know this bitch, this is the bitch you know

The structure here is almost tautological. The entity presents itself as something the listener already knows. Or it could be referring to Ariana Grande.

I would not fuck a basic bitch

Beyond connecting to the last person mentioned, this also points to the principle of initiate selection. Profiles aren't chosen at random for preparation into a deeper wisdom.

This bitch still prayin' to the sun

To pray is to accept defeat. The sun, sun-worship, and so on...

I round 'em up and spin real quick just like a mat

There's no individual here, only a mass and an entity controlling its movement.

They feed that flame and get loud as fuck

The crowd again, the listeners. A collective entity needs participation. The flame doesn't feed itself.

Kool-Aid, bitch, I'm blazin' fast

The phrase "drink the Kool-Aid" means accepting a doctrine or belief in its most extreme form.

He's a bitch, she's a bitch, sorry bitch

Man, woman, doesn't matter. Everyone gets absorbed into the same category. Ride, always dominant in front of the listener.

Section 3

This section speaks for itself pay attention to the lyrics from start to finish.
I think the only thing worth adding for clarity is: a mesmerist is someone tied to mesmerism, the historical practice linked to animal magnetism and, later, to forms of hypnosis. Clients to manipulate/tamper with.

It's no coincidence that right after this section comes the one that seems to be about Ariana.

Exist like a drunk man at the wheel
But first sittin' in the front, not at the wheel
No clue I could fuck you 'cause I will
Fuck praise, all it does is pay my bills
I faced the crowd in Vegas there
Ever fake but isn't where
Shit ain't raw, they can't compare
Check AWOL, bitch, I'm always there

[Bridge]
Intangible intrusion to the bone, through the bone
Feels human bones, human skill
Blessed on windmill and opium feel
Bumpin' shit, I leave open seal
Ghoulishly austere, paralysis is my souvenir
Exit wounds and rabbit ears
Rabbit holes that last for years
Now can you see I have no fears?
Not havin' cares, post-stratosphere
(Witness post-stratosphere)
Misspoke language of savoir faire
Don't need to come with the stolen hair

[Verse 2]
Stranger slip by, catch my interest
Look for a minute at a safe distance
Lose my place, look back, see no one
Death won't wait, will adapt when it closer
Death won't wait, will adapt when it closer
Death won't wait, will adapt when it closer
Middle broad daylight, jump this vanish
I like this type, that's refined manner
Sullen every way, steppin' off when it happens
Sullen every way, steppin' off when it happens
Sullen every way, steppin' off when it happens
This is why I'm swimming in a faucet of acid

[Verse 3]
I bum a dialogue instead of renting it
Call in the place and get an estimate
It's diligent on paper, I'll invest in it
Be weird if I could make it as a mesmerist
Have a tall list of clients to tamper with
Be a practicing confessional
Cultivator of masochists
Crave sanity? I'll make you vegetables
Your family'll thank me like pacifists
Cool long as I don't move my tongue
Cool long as I don't bite my tongue

[Chorus]
I'm into shit like this
Rise with me, you skinned it thick
Rights of passage, I've been through it
Might have abused that shit
I'm into shit like this
Rise with me, you skinned it thick
Rights of passage, I've been through it
Might have abused that shit
I'm into shit like this
Rise with me, you skinned it thick
Rites of passage, I've been through it
Might have abused that shit
I'm into shit like this
Rise with me, you skinned it thick
Rights of passage, I've been through it
Might have abused that shit

Section 4

Dirt, dirt, hot pothead girls
Smoke yours, it's split with the bald-head girl
Dirt, dirt, hot pothead girls
Smoke yours, it's split with the bald-head girl

Her public identity was literally built around hair that wasn't entirely her own. She deliberately removes an attribute closely tied to femininity: hair. In an esoteric reading, that can turn her into a more archetypal figure than a human one. She's not simply "a girl," but a presence stripped of the surface-level markers of identity.

No one's girl

As a pop star, she's a figure extremely possessed, symbolically, by the public. She belongs to no one.

Ancient muse, blatant rude
Awakens your fantasy, bathe in you like Bathory
Bathe in you like Bathory, bathe in you like Bathory

Bathed in blood, violence, sacrificial vampirism it's practically the same dynamic we've been tracing between Death Grips and the listener. The band appears as an object of desire. The listener wants in. And once inside, they discover that the object they desired is devouring them too.

Stoic girl, ocean girl

Ariana Grande's mother is Joan Grande. She is an entrepreneur, producer, and CEO of a marine communications equipment company.

 I'm that killer
You're a fucking sidearm

...

Me and my doppelgänger have a system
I shoulder pain, he loads ammunition
These counterfeits are mostly sober
I pen the script, he pilots the saucer
It's funny, the bored pose of my dead man
We both scramble until I'm the last man
Stay in first so much I have four left hands
He arose disgusted, I awoke in Bethlehem

22
girl / bald-head girl
persona / appearance
muse / fantasy
self / doppelgänger
script / pilot
dead / awake
original / counterfeit

Section 5

Don't ask me where I came from
Ignore me anyway but
Stick it if you think it
Happens when you can't stop

You can't pinpoint the exact place where it begins.

Came to in a sports cage
Five minutes, coulda swore it was a decade
Had the time of my life, no head case
Zoom with the camp where we jump for fuck's sake
Threw it off over end of the hard way
Lie back, then I shut down my heart rate
Enter threshold of blind man's hallway
Hell'll turn a tightrope to my causeway
Two burned rascals call me hombre
And now you're fuckin' with mojo
Side shift like bold fungus moonglow
I flatline straight through to the loophole

The hidden. What lies underneath. What can't be seen right away. The dragon was hiding.
This is an allusion to journeys through substances two entities greet him, call him "Hombre" (man) he brushes past them and goes wherever he wants. He knows exactly what he's doing and how to move through that terrain.

Hell'll turn a tightrope to my causeway

An intelligence not bound by the normal routes.

Tone of our voices means our location's a runaway
I'm before all your destinations, I'll be on display

The entity can't just be anywhere it adapts to the receiver. Death Grips has no single form inside the minds of those who receive it.

You're sleeping on a goldmine

Underneath.
You don't see it.
You have to dig. We're literally telling you so.

No matter what, stay where you are, if you go
Don't matter who you shot, there's no scars where you are
Never felt this, but I been so lost, nothing's broke
Make your life a demand, things don't blow to be all gone

There are no eternal wounds etched on the spirit. What you are experiencing now, this kind of mental convergence that was previously unknown to you, is part of something much larger. Because nothing is destroyed simply to cease to exist. When something seems to explode and disappear, its components actually find another way to reunite, both on the material and spiritual planes. In the end, the body inevitably returns to the earth.

Section 6

Fall out on impact

consequences following an explosion or disaster.

What if I was strapped like toothpaste?

Here we have another image of something held back under pressure that can be expelled. And this becomes a recurring motif throughout the section.

Chinchilla, rich blood, mindset, core forms
Timeless, but I admire improvised explosives
Glowed off, my darlins, good labor, my harlot
Blood form with the ice flow garnet

Garnet has a deep red color, so we have a visual mix of red and cool. And that leads us to a rather alchemical interpretation. Transmutation of matter.

Assailant inside the figment

The assailant is inside the figure. Not outside. Inside.
And that fits perfectly with the concept we've been building since the earlier sections: the threat doesn't necessarily come from outside the entity. The threat is part of it.

The offer day, the offer day, you're numbered
Try to flee, but you can't leave
You get paid to suffer

The song started out speaking to you almost directly and ends up telling you that your suffering is profitable. That can be read as capitalism, the music industry, labor, consumption, exploitation or even the relationship between artist and audience itself. You pay, you consume, you suffer, you worship, you reproduce. The system wins.

Section 7

At the time, didn't recognize myself 'til I was petrified
But half the time I'm not myself, so most of the time I don't question why
We did testify, but best I can do is buy some time
Spend my time folding time, even met myself one time
Black body, body

What's interesting is that the subject doesn't try to resolve it. He just gets used to it. It's a state of matter and of consciousness.

A black body an idealized object that absorbs all the electromagnetic radiation it receives, and which, in physics, serves as a fundamental model for studying thermal emission.

you can't see the kraken

The Kraken is precisely a creature whose true scale stays hidden beneath the surface. You see the sea, but not what lies underneath.

The creators are visible. The creature they produce isn't necessarily...

Reave culture so distant it hides behind life, kill the pain

Not simply culture as in music or art. Something hidden behind what we experience.

Section 8

All I see are sycophants, hunting for that little bit
Never will get sick of it, take it like the middle one
Learned about how sick it is, every word is cinema
Find me off a precipice, I'm flying like the state of drugs

A figure of power waiting to gain something. This connects directly to the reading we've been building of Death Grips as a kind of dominant entity that draws followers in and then despises them for following. Adepts chasing a small piece of the knowledge the entity holds. Altered consciousness reappears here as a vehicle for movement.

This ties back to the earlier references to drugs, trance, ritual, altered perception. But there's a difference the drug doesn't seem to be simply a substance. It's a state.

What can I say? Fuck what you say
You can ask around if you think I'm frontin'
Never been that much, but I got here first
Get the fuck out, bitch, while I do my work

...

Steroids, without a doubt, holds one of the densest and perhaps most confessional lyrical loads in Death Grips' entire career, comparable to moments from The Powers That B and No Love Deep Web. Thank you for reading. I'll do my best to answer any questions or comments.