Title: Grey Tickles, Black Pressure
Artiste: John Grant
Year 2015
Nationality: American
Genre: Pop
Rank: Novice
3
Expectations: I certainly enjoyed
Pale Green Ghosts, though that is the only album from John Grant I have heard. I hope this will continue that appreciation of him for me, though I do note that he mentioned that he wanted to “sound angrier on this album”, so maybe it might be a totally different proposition.
1. Intro: Spoken intro; two voices, think one is speaking a foreign language. Interesting. Weird vocal effects applied near the end are almost disturbing and turn into one big effect that takes over the piece.
2. Grey tickles, black pressure: I love his simple lyrics: “Haemerrhoid commercials on the TV set”
Song has a Beatles mid-paced vibe to it. Mostly driven on piano, nice vocal chorus
a la ELO. Beautiful orchestral backing, just sublime.
3. Snug slacks: In contrast, not at all mad about this one. His more synthpop compositions can leave me cold. This does.
4. Guess how I know: No, not into this either. Not as bad as “Snug slacks” but it's too in-your-face for me.
5. You & him: This is a bit better, though I'm still waiting for anything of the calibre of the title track. Powerful, stabbing synths and snarling guitars with a strong vocal.
6. Down here: Ah, and now we're getting there! Great little rocker with some fine brass and an engaging organ line. Bops along nicely with a vaguely Gerry Raffertyesque feel.
7. Voodoo doll: And this one is great too. Smooth synthpop line that, um, suddenly goes all funky which I'm not too happy about. Feel like it has changed too radically now. Yeah .... I think it can retain its Green, but just barely.
8. Global warming: This has a beautiful soft opening on accordion I think, and it may be heading for another Blue. Yeah, it is. Lovely orchestration, and I like the honest feelings about his homosexuality expressed in the lyric.
9. Magma arrives: Could be another ballad. Lovely piano line. Getting more powerful now, though still slow. Very dark.
10. Black blizzard: Love the slow, lazy, undulating synthline in this and the other, squelchy one too. Real sort of ominous feel to it. Marches along with a sense of dark purpose. Vocoder is great as is the whiny synth near the end; reminds me of Genesis on “Mama” or Gary Numan on “Are Friends Electric?”
11. Disappointing: This is quite funky, but I really like it. Excellent turn by Everything But the Girl's Tracy Thorn on guest vocals.
12. No more tangles: Another lovely ballad with some great percussion and orchestration.
13. Geraldine: This is the longest track, and I can already feel a Blue coming on again. Gorgeous, almost progressive rock opening, with some lovely rippling piano and synthy lushness.
4. Outro: Meh. More or less a repeat of the intro, but spoken by a little girl. Nice idea but I can hardly rate thirty seconds of speech.
Final result: Another excellent album from Grant. True, there are a few tracks I'm not overly impressed by, but then, look at all those Blues. An instant classic, without doubt.
Rating: 
