Soup wrote this:
Portland's Grails dropped their new album, Doomsdayer's Holiday on Temporary Residence today. They play a sort of heavy classic rock, blues and folk influenced post-rock kind of thing, somehow defying any attempt at categorization or pigeonholing.
The title track is probably as straight-up metal as these guys get, with its classic doom metal guitar bringing to mind bands like Black Sabbath and Candlemass without ever ripping off either of them. The second track, “Reincarnation Blues,” is definitely my favorite on here. Starting out simple with bells and a wind instrument (I'm not sure what it is) playing an awesome blues riff. Then the guitars come in and the track turns into an energetic psychedelic blues freakout that winds down into an ambient drone outro with some sampled chanting underneath it. “The Natural Man” is folk music for astronauts. It channels the feel of David Bowie's “Space Oddity” into something else entirely. Something that sounds undeniably classic without being too self-conscious about it. “Immediate Mate” seems to kind of want to hang in the background. Starts out with a quiet blues guitar riff and some keyboards and subtle percussion. It's sort of an ambient jazz thing, and the glitched out electronics and awesome jazz percussion keep it interesting. “Predestination Blues” picks up where “Reincarnation Blues” left off. It's a slower song, drowned in reverb with the same kind of feel. Meditative chanting provides a base from which swirling guitars build up over the last two minutes or so of the track. The next track, “X-Contamination” builds up from a droning keyboard into a swirling mass of samples and loops into an awesome spaced-out blues-rock thing, which is gone almost as soon as it began, degenerating back into the primordial soup it came from. The last track, “Acid Rain,” starts with a lazy, stoned Dark Side of the Moon style guitar thing with some electronics building up under it until they eventually overtake it in a sort of staticky climax that, much like the radio fading out, quickly fades out and disappears. There are some vocals here. Very subtle, buried under the guitars and bass and drums. Eventually, this fades out to make way for a warm, reverb drenched guitar meditation.
These guys are playing a show on October 12th with Sunn o))) in Portland. After that, they're going on a short east coast tour with the Silver Apples (who I am frankly surprised are still around, but it's an appropriate fit, I think)! As always, more information can be found at the band's official website.
Oct 12 2008 8:00P Berbati’s Pan, w/Sunn0)) Portland, Oregon
Nov 11 2008 8:00P Empty Bottle Chicago, Illinois
Nov 12 2008 8:00P Skull Alley Louisville, Kentucky
Nov 13 2008 8:00P Hi Tone, with Silver Apples Memphis, Tennessee
Nov 14 2008 9:00P Caledonia, with Silver Apples Athens, Georgia
Nov 15 2008 8:00P Drunken Unicorn, with Silver Apples Altanta, Georgia
Nov 16 2008 8:00P Emerald Lounge, with Silver Apples Asheville, North Carolina
Nov 18 2008 8:00P Local 506, with Silver Apples Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Nov 19 2008 8:00P Ottobar, with Silver Apples Baltimore, Maryland
Nov 20 2008 8:00P Bard College Poughkeepsie, New York
Nov 21 2008 8:00P Union Pool Brooklyn, New York
Nov 22 2008 9:00P Knitting Factory Manhattan, New York
Comments