TechnicLePanther

Troll, what genre of album should I recommend?

Also, my review is here now:

The Gris Gris - The Gris Gris


This is certainly an odd album. However, it may just be one of those rare cases where you have an odd album with mass appeal. And there is definitely a lot of appeal to this album. By mixing early neo-psych tendencies with indie rock, The Gris Gris have made an enjoyable blend for almost any modern music connoisseur. The album begins with Raygun, a track that feels a bit like a pot of water slowly rising to a boil. The opener features a slow marching drum beat and a jangly guitar which are slowly enveloped by a haze of noise, then an abrupt change towards a much faster-paced drum line which slowly accumulates instruments until the much slower breakdown and the repeated "Raygun, raygun, da dum, da dum".

The next track, Everytime is much shorter and will impress neo-psych fans with a, perhaps unintentional, homage to Astronomy Domine. The keys in this one also play a prominent role. Mary #38 has even more psychedelic appeal, with a slow slippery drumline and palpable bass. Me queda um bejou, a guitar-heavy, almost entirely acoustic track with a hint of piano also showcases a sax solo, demonstrating a bit of range for the band, and the whole track does have a bit of a romantic feel to it. Plain Vanilla is overall a pretty stressful and unsightly track, which at this point is obviously intentional. Many wild instrumentals weave in and out of the main bass line and create a colorful dissonance.

What I can only presume is the second half of the album begins with an uptempo blues track called Necessary Separation. I have to praise the guitar work in the solo towards the middle of the track, it certainly calls back Clapton in its simple virtuosity. One drum line persists throughout this entire track, with what I assume to be the same bass line underneath all of that noise! Certainly one of the more experimental and perhaps patience-testing tracks on the album. The penultimate track, Medication #3 reminds me a bit of the Sung Tongs and Feels from Animal Collective, and the melody of the track is probably one of the best and also one of the most blatantly post-60s of the album. The melancholy feel of the track does, however, serve as a nice contrast to the simple country ditty finishing off the album, Winter Weather.

So what can I say? This album drew me in like a fish on a hook. While most of the production and performance is sloppy, the songwriting and attitude of the band have won me over. This album doesn't really have a track that you can point to and say, this one is worse than this other one, it feels more like it's just up to personal taste. And nothing about this album is stale or overblown. The tracks are just long enough and the contrast between them is just large enough to prevent boredom or distaste. With that said, there's nothing about this LP that jumps out at you to make an amazing album. The downside of having a bunch of good tracks is that you can't have any that are great. And don't get me wrong, I love a solid, consistent album, but there has to be something beyond consistency to throw an album into the upper echelon. Still, at least to me, this album is really good, a solid 7-8 out of 10.

This LP fits between Grateful Dead - American Beauty and Mount Eerie - A Crow Looked At Me on my ranked albums list. Note: This list hasn't been around for very long, so I still don't have many LPs to measure up to.

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Many have tried to destroy it... but... true evil never dies. It is only... REBORN

SUGGEST ME AN ALBUM - I'm probably not going to listen to it but I will if you bother me enough.