Grails
Sun Nov 9
PS WHAT?
From the Neurot Newsletter:
“Neurosis’ longtime friend and brother (and onetime roadie) was listening to the Grails record just released on NR. This friend was just having a quiet evening at home, drinking one or two bottles of beer, and was so overcome by the emotional intensity of Grails’ music that he was inspired to–and did, indeed–smash his television set to pieces. In an act of extreme devotion to the musical form, our friend has no plans to replace his television. He continues to be a big fan of Grails.”
You could do worse than to have a guy break his TV over your music. And, while the past is strewn with people murdered over lyrics, Grails don’t even need words to send a dude into destruct mode. Said man (who, it must be pointed out, being a Neurosis fan, most certainly smashed the television without any semblance of irony) got his passion from a band whose primary melodic instrument is the violin. Paganini has got to be stoked.
The Portland-based instrumental five-piece, formerly known as Laurel Canyon, just released their first album on Neurosis’ respected Neurot Recordings, and they do indeed deal in emotional intensity, unleashing a voracious ebb and flow of violin, guitars, a gaping chasm of drums, well composed. It’s appropriate that, in a time where visceral response to music is the dominant commodified art form, a band whose emotional effect is so powerful doesn’t have any lyrics. Grails knows periphery, subtleties, the indefinable heaviness of being. Says guitarist Alex Hall, “It’s all pretty abstract, unavoidably, I guess. Playing instrumental music, I think it would be foolish for us to try to be specific. You know when you listen to a song and it just affects you to the point that your insides ache? I think that’s a very beautiful thing.”
Speaking of aching beauty, when Jeez’s violin weeps amid a great refrain of Grails’ guitars, you know what they meant when they named their album The Burden of Hope. But Hall says they got the title from a documentary about Werner Herzog–“called Burden of Dreams, about the making of Fitzcarraldo. Both films are essentially concerned with human will and obsession clashing harshly with reality–pretty weighty themes, but ones that I’d like to think are universal.”