Doomsdayer's Holiday, the first song on the similarly-titled album, starts off with distant screams and eerie tones, from which bursts a heavy drumbeat, itself crashing into a heavy, arpeggiated guitar riff. Another guitar kicks in, mimicking the first, giving the whole thing an epic feel. And then, suddenly, the next song, Reincarnation Blues, which starts with - well, I'm not sure what it is, really, but it sounds like a Sitar - giving a nice, upbeat change and a refreshingly original dichotomy of sounds.
But, unfortunately, it regresses quickly back to bleak and nightmarish noise. And, fair enough, that seems to be the concept of Doomsdayer's Holiday, but it seems such a waste. The times when Grails really get going are brilliant, mixing together what sounds like the better parts of Metallica's back catalogue, Thin Lizzy's two-axed riffs and The Mars Volta's effects-laden breakdowns; but there's a little too much fannying around, and not quite enough rocking, to justify those comparisons truly.
Metallica have dark, complex riffs that you can headbang to, Thin Lizzy are imbued with an infinite amount of awesome and The Mars Volta's breakdowns are, if anything, necessary, due to the intensity of their normal stuff, but Grails kind of miss the point of each one. They have an infinite amount of dark, complex breakdowns, and the intense headbanging awesomeness is put on the back-burner somewhat.
Doomsdayer's Holiday is certainly an interesting album, though, and the production is superb. The songs maintain a high standard of composition and intricacy, and the Oregon-based four-piece are clearly excellent musicians, but the lack of any singing does slightly hamper the thing. The Pink Floyd-like "Acid Rain", for example, might benefit from some - in fact, just add Dave Gilmour's vocals, and it could easily be a bonus track on Dark Side of the Moon - but perhaps a voice would hamper Grail's style. The point, it seems, is to provide an apocalyptic soundscape, and this they do very well.
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Dead Holiday-Dead Holiday-[Punk]
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Grails - Doomsdayer's Holiday
