DOWNPICK

“Well, that was louder than I expected.”

Those were the words out of frontman Ola Lindgren’s mouth when Grave made it to the title track of ‘Into The Grave’, Grave’s seminal Grave-themed debut record, the 20^th anniversary of which they were celebrating with this tour.  As the band plowed through the album track by track, finally making it to the song that helped define not just Swedish Death Metal, but in many ways death metal entirely, the crowd was rabid in their response of Ola’s call “Into the …..?”, surprising him with their graven enthusiasm.

Enthusiastic they were, head-banging, stage-diving, fist-pumping, getting the punk rock death metal fury out to a band that hasn’t made it to this American coast in some time.  Ola, Ronnie, and Tobias (wait, they are Swedish right?), decked in old school thrasher uniforms of Exciter T-shirts and tight jeans, seemed genuinely surprised, as if they were just some local band playing to a crowd spanning more than just their buddies and their girlfriends pretending to enjoy it.  The Bay Area vets were in attendance of course, but so was a whole other, younger crowd, that appeared to have just discovered the band in last weeks blog searching.

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Boris is dead.

The band that filled their stage with far too many full-stacks of amplifiers for the modest number of members; the band that liked to sit on one fat hairy note until their audience passed out from blissful exhaustion; the band that played heavy rock and roll–that band is no more.

Since the first time I saw Grails, opening for Neurosis, I’ve been smitten. It could easily be said that I celebrate their entire catalog. Over the years, the band has engaged in a fair deal of label hopping, with releases on Neurot, Important, Southern (Latitudes Series), and most recently Temporary Residence.  Acid Rain serves as a nice retrospective of their career, including highlights from their hazy 2004 tour of Europe, CMJ performance in 2006 and a full NYC set from 2007.

 The real highlight though are the six original videos, edited by drummer extraordinaire Emil Amos. Basically a cross of 70′s cult cinema and cosmic imagery, these moving images provide the perfect accompaniment to Grails spacey sounds. I don’t know when Mr. Amos had the time to put this together, as the man is constantly involving himself in various duties. When not manning the drums for Grails, he’s behind the kit alongside Al Cisneros in ritual drone outfit Om. And since that’s not enough to keep a person busy, Emil also records solo projects under the moniker Holy Sons. Not a dud among all his works. 

But enough with the idol worship.  Medicate, check out the teaser below, and feed your brain Grails.