Album Review: Doomsdayer's Holiday by Grails

The title track opens the record with the sound of a far off scream that can mistakenly, at first, be taken for wind blowing through an open window. It is quickly followed by thudding tom-toms, waves of muted feedback, and guitars and violins worthy of Black Sabbath's fuzzed-out bass heaviness and the flanged out space guitar in the instrumental bridge of Robin Trower's "Too Rolling Stoned." It's all overblown, slow, and menacing. It's followed by the wailing power of an Eastern European violin with bass thudding, power-amped guitar riffage and wailing snares and cymbals in "Reincarnation Blues." There are dynamic stops and starts, making the listener yearn for that heaviness to continue.

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Review Summary: Acid-tinged 70s prog meets modern post-rock with a little help from transplanted non-Western musical stylings.Grails - Doomsdayer's HolidayGrails' 2004 release Redlight was a masterclass in concise, efficacious songwriting. Grails were a post-rock band churning out complete, three-minute mini-epics. As far as I know, their ability to craft a startling instrumental crescendo without the benefit of minutes upon minutes of e-bowing and ambient background vocals hasn't been matched by other comparable bands in the same genre to this day.

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