Posts Tagged ‘Jackie Perez Gratz’

Album of the day: Giant Squid – Cenotes

Posted on Thursday, October 27th, 2011

Lovingly pinched from Sputnikmusic: Giant Squid are a slippery bunch. They began as an indie-rock outfit with Monster in the Creek, hit us with the contemplative, doomy Metridium Fields, and then threw the playbook out the window on their wonderfully bizarre follow-up, The Ichthyologist. Attempting to pin Giant Squid’s sound down is an exercise in futility, but much like their namesake, it’s generally dark, massive, and mysterious.

In crafting The Ichthyologist, Giant Squid gallivanted about between genres that should never have worked together: swamp-rock tinged revenge tale ‘Dead Man Slough’ led into the morbid, bluesy rocker ‘Throwing A Donner Pary at Sea’, followed by the half-dirge, half-duet ‘Sevengill’, which in turn gave way to the heartbreaking and dissonant ‘Mormon Island’, composed entirely of banjo, strings, and Jackie Perez Gratz’s haunting voice. And you know what?

The result was one of the most interesting and refreshing albums of the year. Sure, it was a lot to digest. Maybe ‘Sutterville’, with its stop-start rhythm and crazy jazz chords, took a while to warm up to. But what The Ichthyologist lacked in accessibility, it made up for with near-infinite replay value. So what does a band do for an encore after it’s already pulled out all the creative stops?

Cenotes sees Giant Squid taking a step backward to take two steps forward – returning somewhat to their circa-2006 sound, except his time, they’re armed with a whole new array of weapons. Opener ‘Tongue Stones’ starts with a dissonant, churning riff courtesy of Jackie Perez-Gratz’ electric cello, before being joined by a ridiculously low jangling guitar line. While the doomy melodies of Cenotes are more out of the Metridium Fields mold than their last album, there’s definitely a renewed overall focus.

Continue reading: Giant Squid – Cenotes (album review) | Sputnikmusic.

Tags: Album of the day, Cenotes, Giant Squid, Jackie Perez Gratz, Sputnikmusic
Posted in 2011, Album of the Day, Roadburn Recommended | 1 Comment »

Album of the day: Grayceon – All We Destroy

Posted on Monday, March 21st, 2011

Lovingly pinched from About.com: Heavy Metal: Grayceon pushes right past our conceptions of metal with clean singing and a cello. True, other bands have touched on these sounds, but Grayceon goes even a step beyond gender benders like Neurosis and Isis. They are similar to their Bay Area cohorts Ludicra ...read more