Shehzaad Jiwani | Heartbreaking Bravery

May 12, 2016

Greys – Outer Heaven (Album Review)

Editor’s Note: There’s been a month-long gap in coverage, thanks to near-incessant travel and other extenuating circumstances. The following run of posts that contain this note will be posts that should have appeared sometime within the past several weeks. Use these posts as an opportunity to catch up to the present release cycle or to simply discover some new music. Either way, enjoy.

Ever since their emergence, Greys have held a spot as a site favorite. Whether it was their incendiary live performances, thought-provoking music videos, or their intelligent-but-immediate approach to noise-punk, the quartet always found a way to make a lasting impression. Last month, they unveiled the next extraordinary step of their ongoing evolution: their latest full-length, Outer Heaven.

In past interviews, guitarist/vocalist and principal songwriter Shehzaad Jiwani has stated that Greys attempt to subvert the populist approach to noise-punk by placing the majority of the melodic emphasis on the instrumental portions and the majority of the dissonance in the vocal melodies. While that holds true for much of Outer Heaven, it’s easy to hear the two beginning to be pulled towards a more neutral marriage that ultimately propels the songs to even greater heights.

After a string of deliriously frantic singles, EP’s, and records, the band’s also more fully embracing a brave experimentation that sees them pushing their own tendencies in fascinating new directions. Whether it’s via simple production tricks like the vocal warping in “No Star” or the gentle, almost ballad-like qualities that they sporadically imbue into tracks like the psych-influenced “Erosion”.

By the time Outer Heaven‘s most jarring 1-2 punch hits (the frighteningly explosive “Sorcerer” and the record’s hazy final track, “My Life As A Cloud”), Greys have made it abundantly clear that this is a landmark release. Easily one of the year’s most fascinating releases to date, Outer Heaven is an important piece for Greys’ own progression and a listen that dares to be challenging. A singular listen from an unexpected source, this is a sharp record that fully rewards investment.

Listen to Outer Heaven below and pick it up from Carpark here.

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December 27, 2015

2015: A Visual Retrospective, Vol. 7

PWR BTTM I

Throughout the course of 2015 I’ve been fortunate enough to attend upwards of 100 shows, festivals big and small, and spend approximately half a year living in a city that hosted a mind-boggling amount of quality shows on a nightly basis. To that end, it’s probably unsurprising that I wound up taking over 10,000 photos this year alone. Over the course of the next few days, this site will be running seven volumes of the shots that stood out as personal favorites, whether that was due to their composition, sentimental attachment, or an intangible emotional or intellectual response. It’s been an honor to be able to take even the smallest part in the ongoing sagas of the artists in the photographs below and an additional thanks is due to the venues that allowed me to shoot (as well as the people who encouraged me to keep shooting).

The preceding galleries can be accessed via these links:

2015: A Visual Retrospective, Vol. 1
2015: A Visual Retrospective, Vol. 2
2015: A Visual Retrospective, Vol. 3
2015: A Visual Retrospective, Vol. 4
2015: A Visual Retrospective, Vol. 5
2015: A Visual Retrospective, Vol. 6

Enjoy the gallery.

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June 6, 2014

Greys – Use Your Delusion (Music Video)

Quite a bit of kind digital ink has already been spilled on Greys (hell, quite a bit’s already been spilled on this very song) and they keep providing reasons for more to get added to the already overflowing pile. In the previous review for “Use Your Delusion” (which can be clicked on via the hyperlink directly preceding this sentence) there was a bold claim or two claiming the song was “all adrenaline rush and pent-up frustration [that] channels the best of both post-punk and classic hardcore.” Nothing’s changed. All that’s happened is that the band’s released another Amanda Fotes-helmed video toying with the idea of linearity that winds up providing an extra punch to the given statements.

As a video “Use Your Delusion” features the band playing the song to an empty room and then letting most of the magic happen in post-production. Very rarely travelling at regular speed, the video is instead presented at a brisk sped-up pace or in captivating slow-motion. There’s a brief recess from the action where the band all reveal yo-yo’s but for the most part, it’s just them crashing headlong into one of the year’s best songs- at constantly shifting speeds. It’s a jarring bit of modernism that feels both slightly antagonistic and entirely appropriate, landing the band yet another compelling bit of media and pushing expectations for what they’re capable of even higher.

Watch “Use Your Delusion” below and join the rest of the world in salivating over the promise of the band’s upcoming debut, If Anything.

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