Grails – Deep Politics

The skinny: Jekyll and Hyde.

The review proper: Another Grails‘ corker of an album.

Stream – ‘Deep Politics’

More in the style started by the Black Tar Prophecies and fully adsorbed in Doomsdayer’s Holiday, Grails have now found a very distinct sound in their new album, Deep Politics. Their styles have been fully absorbed and developed.

Personally, their sound always makes me think of film. If we take that idea as an statement and imagine for a moment that Deep Politics is a soundtrack, ‘Future Primitive’ would be the perfect song for the opening titles, setting up the stage. A grey city, rain, people in trenchcoats, cars buzzing by during twilight, nightfall, when the town finally shows its less favourable angle.

If there’s one thing that Grails has always showed is that they don’t recycle ideas and the last thing you’ll ever hear in one of their songs is the same notes over and over. They might get reprised a few times, but this time around, they are all over the fretboards, keyboards and drumkits. ‘All the colors of the dark’ just needs a voice over to be completely at home in a noir film, with that jazzy piano and the expansive breaks that interrupt the mood and then just fade into the distance. The song is only 4 minutes, but it feels like a lot more. In a good way.

‘Corridors of power’ is a very slow groove, almost with an ambient beat and a hypnotic wind instrument adding to the vibe. ‘Deep politics’ brings the pace a little down, raining on the parade that the album was. Calling it “stark” would be a disservice, as it is way gloomier than that. Not even a very distant electric guitar can save it from being a very solemn, chilling moment. The pace does improve around the halfway mark, but the damage is done already. This beautiful moment is the perfect song that encompasses the album and it’s no wonder why the name of the album is derived from it.

Now, there’s something strange: after ‘Daughters of Bilitis’, you realise that the songs have been slightly on the short side. That’s because the final 3 songs of this album are above the 7 minute mark and all three in unison are longer than the five before. That bit of useless trivia is just a base argument to make the following assumption: is Deep Politics an album of two different styles, each for one side of the vinyl edition?

‘Almost grew my hair’, in its mammoth 8 minutes, covers quite a lot of musical ground, like free style improvisation, but with reason behind the rhyme. As it if were a piece of classical music, with several movements, the song moves forward, never stopping, seamlessly changing moods and creating a thick atmosphere.

If we were to follow my daft analogy of Grails‘ music being like a soundtrack, then ‘I led three lives’ would be the sounds of the final confrontation. An 80s shoot out, a fight in a mountains, a revelation in a family gathering, a scientific breakthrough, you name it.

The unnerving, constant electronic beat in the back (relentless until the end) is paired with a droning acoustic guitar while everyone else joins in. Layer after layer come and unravel, receding sometimes and then coming back with a fury that Grails clearly relishes using (all about that drumming build up in the middle) in order to just fade with synths. ‘I led three lives’ is easily the best track from Deep Politics and you can download it free here.

‘Deep snow’ is the final punch for the album, starting quietly and suckerpunching you when it decides it wants the pace to change. Grails in their natural element, do watch out. Love the acoustic guitar intro and how everything seeps in organically.

The years have been kind to the band, with different styles feeding into Grails‘ ever expanding and evolving sound. The vast sound that characterised them since album number one (the fantastic The Burden of Hope) is still here, but in a very complex form, developed from that space country thing they sort of had into a strange, fractal like chaos-based musical iterations that could very well be the soundtrack to a film. Better left unseen, as it wouldn’t match the expectations layered by these 8 songs.

Download: Grails – Almost Grew My Hair

—Sam

Thanks to Trevor from biz 3 for all his help for this review.

Links

Website. Spotify. Myspace. Last.fm. Facebook.Download ‘I led three lives’.

About the author: If the Mayans are correct, I’ll play this band’s music in December 2012.