Grails: Deep Politics (Temporary Residence, 3/8/11)
Grails: “I Led Three Lives”
[audio:http://alarm-magazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Grails-I-Led-Three-Lives.mp3|titles=Grails: “I Led Three Lives”]With cinematic soundscapes, Westernized Indian melodies, film-noir mystique, 1960s psychedelia, and crushing heaviness, Grails is an instrumental rarity. The Portland band’s newest offering, Deep Politics, is an engaging and epic mix of acoustic intonations, indigenous sounds and melodies, spaghetti-western motifs, somber piano balladry, and more doom-filled, Eastern-infused stylistic transcendence.
And thanks in part to arrangements by Timba Harris, the mighty violinist from unparalleled genre annihilators Estradasphere and Secret Chiefs 3, Deep Politics vies to be Grails’ best album yet.