 Music is a situational beast - by its very nature, it chameleons itself to accommodate the atmosphere and track the mood. Today the mood was melancholy. Today my friend lost someone very important to her. Today was a bad day. For that reason alone when the Greycoats’ moody debut album Setting Fire to the Great Unknown arrived on my desk it wasn’t even a bit surprising. The mood called for it and their album sounds the way mourning feels. Greycoats describe their music as melancholic. In an art form that more often than not spawns artists more enamoured with their own suffering than any other beast on this earth, that kind of proclamation can be seen as somewhat of a warning signal. If they view their music as being that gloomy, then where will that leave the rest of us? Where indeed? In truth, from end to end, the music on Setting Fire to the Great Unknown probably drops the listener off where they need to be, if that whole music following the mood hoopla is to be believed. Granted this is not an album to listen to on a warm summer picnic day, it has its place in time and circumstance, but it has enough achingly slow orchestral solos, fervoured drums and rolling punches of anger to suit all unhappy tastes. Greycoats are a peculiar quartet from Minneapolis, Minnesota. They have - for the sake of being the band it seems - taken on the personas of pre-coloured photograph pioneers. They, apparently single handedly, are rescuing the drowning listener from the turbulent cold waters of modern day music; liberating the ignorant savage from musical purgatory. However, with their website and MySpace site speaking in complex hyperbole and borrowing extensively from a number of historical tableaus, it is pretty difficult to understand what exactly they are campaigning against. Whether it is merely the excess of modern day society which they want to re-annexe, or some sort of mid-western meets Delarey circa Orwell’s 1984 – but with indie pop rock – that they would like to establish is difficult to make out. But, their music is beautifully put together, which I suppose is a good place to start. Setting Fire to the Great Unknown is the debut from these chaps (namely: on Reine: guitar and vocals; Titus Decker: keyboards, vocals; Mike Smith: drums and Matt Patrick: bass). It is therefore not surprising that on offer over the 11 tracks is a wide range of influences and a bit of borrowed zing from a range of important artists, including the likes of: Arcade Fire, Keane, Radiohead, Coldplay and Muse. For originality sake and an extra edge, the band has also thrown in a few curveballs, which sound beguilingly like Brandon Boyd at an acoustic Snow Patrol jam along session. Semi-pretentious song titles aside, Greycoats have put together a beautifully interesting album. Their break out song ‘Watchman, What is Left of the Night’ was featured on popular American teen series Gossip Girl – which seems to contrast with their general propaganda. Either they went main stream against their will or it was just a wily move to infiltrate the psyche of Americans via the mass produced serial. Perhaps it was just another cunning step in the ploy to rescue the modern day listeners from drowning. Who knows? In any case, ‘Watchman, What is Left of the Night’ is a wonderful ambling five minute affair which brings to mind how One Sock Thief would sound with Thom Yorke at the rostrum. Very churning, very beautiful, very painful and great, I imagine, for helping unleash the emotions of the rich kids from the Upper East Side. The rest of the album, however, pales in comparison when held up against the symphonic finale ‘Not Afraid’. Cobbling together the cast offs of rejection at 14, a cold lonely afternoon staring at the rain and the empty click at the end of the phone line when you just have nothing left to say, ‘Not Afraid’ is impossibly subtle in its efforts to cuddle the melancholy. If they have that in them, then the album is definitely worth a fourth and a fifth listen. When heart ache comes to call, sometimes there is very little else you can do except crawl up with a song that verbalises everything you don’t really have the mind to say. Setting Fire to the Great Unknown is definitely a good album to draw from when that kind of moment comes to call.
Greycoats on MySpace Music - Free Streaming MP3s, Pictures & Music Downloads
Last edited by Nat Morris : June 7, 2009 at 12:07 PM.
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| | | | Overall Rating | | 7 | | Vocals / Lyrics | | 7 | | Musicianship | | 8 | | Production | | 7 | | Creativity | | 5 | | Lastability | | 5 | | Reviewers Tilt | | 7 |
66% | |
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