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Recognition. 

So, I thought to myself, why the hell not? I'm going to publish my album reviews as individual blog texts as well as in the Melodies of -pages. I feel the music I write about deserves as much recognition as possible, as good music always does.

Grails - Deep Politics

(post-rock) 

 

“My notion of deep politics posits that in every culture and society there are facts which tend to be suppressed collectively, because of the social and psychological costs of not doing so.” 

-Peter Dale Scott

Grails sets a new standard for the year of 2011 with Deep Politics, their latest asset in the ever-thriving musical market of post-rock. The way I see it, feel it and hear it, the album is the story of a dead town at the Western end of the world.

The opener, Future Primitive, is a strong, riffy track with a moderately slow-tempo. What makes this song exquisite, is the use of violin - the violin is superb, to put it in a nutshell. It works wonders with Grails' style of music and adds a welcome element to sometimes bland taste of post-rock.

All The Colors Of Dark has a dark piano beginning, haunting even. It reminds me of an old horror movie somehow. The song makes its progression from a horror movie into the desolate western town with dust blowing through the saloon doors and the ghosts of the past haunting the cities remnants. The main character of the album, such the one that would be in a book, a man walking through the city with slow, long steps. The song centers around the man and you can feel yourself entering his state of mind.

Corridors Of Power begins with a flute of the native Americans, accompanied by steady drum beats. A silent tribesman sitting in front of his teepee with smoke rising from his long pipe. He's thinking of how fast the world is moving.

Deep Politics. After three strong tracks, the expectations are high for the title track of the album. Yet again, a slow piano contribution to the beginning, which states the melancholy atmosphere. The lonely musics man of the saloon playing the final sounds of the night, in the morning. Distant guitars in the background. Nothing is happening until the drum filler kicks in and the musics man lifts his head up in a state of musical euphoria and cries long, salty tears of mixed joy and sadness.

Daughters Of Bilitis have been sold as prostitutes to the saloon. The clear piano and the crying violin make them desperate figures who have had no choice left. Everyone thinks of them as whores with no future, no ambitions, no one speaks it aloud. After all, they crave for their services and hope to God that whatever happens upstairs at the saloon, stays upstairs.

Almost Grew My Hair has a rough beginning. There's a new sheriff in town, even though there are no criminals to give justice to – they're all dead. Musically, and not metaphorically, speaking, the country-based riff of the first few minutes is smooth enough to give me the chills. One of the best guitar placements, compositions and the ability to move fingers I have ever heard on a post-rock song. The 6-minute mark presents a slow motion feeling, the song stops and the length of the period of time seems to double. Then the guitar kicks back in and we're off again.

I Led Three Lives builds slowly skywards. Back to walking the empty streets of the solemn town in the desert with your rusty boot straps clicking against tiny rocks. This is the very backbone of the album: has everything the other tracks do and summarizes the whole conceptual feeling of Deep Politics into a near 9-minute behemoth of a post-rocking composition.

Deep Snow - the winter has come to the town at the western end of the world leaving the streets to those whom they belong to, the apparitions of the past. The most positive track on the album and leaves a great feeling afterwards, about the particular song and the whole album in general. After all, the feeling after listening to this album cannot be anything but positive.

(5.0/5.0)