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GRAILS

Grails

Anches En Maat

    Anches En Maat is the first new album from Grails in over a half-decade following the masterful Chalice Hymnal in 2017 and their first album recorded with all members in the studio together since Doomsdayer’s Holiday in 2008. With every Grails album released since Doomsdayer’s Holiday being a sprawling double-album endeavor, Anches En Maat was conceived as a return to the comparatively efficient single LP runtime. With that, Grails set out to craft the same sonically dense world that their longer albums showcased, while trading singular indulgences for live collaborative interplay.

    The core group of founding members Alex Hall and Emil Amos (Om, Holy Sons) joined Jesse Bates, Ilyas Ahmed, and AE Paterra (Zombi, Majeure) in Atlanta, GA to record Anches En Maat together a novel event for a band who had become so accustomed to recording separately and then labouring in post-production for months or even years on end. An improbable blend of melted 1980s softcore and daytime soap opera soundtracks, cosmic minimalism, aching Westerns, melancholy electronic pulses, and massive soul-disco strings, Anches En Maat is one of Grails’ most ambitious albums of their 20+ year career. Through continually refining and maturing their vision as a band, Grails have stumbled upon a reprogramming of their internal logic and come out the other side with a new defining statement.

    TRACK LISTING

    1. Sad & Illegal (5:05)
    2. Viktor’s Night Map (5:03)
    3. Sisters Of Bilitis (5:32)
    4. Pool Of Gems (3:10)
    5. Evening Song (3:48)
    6. Black Rain (4:49)
    7. Anches En Maat (12:38)

    Grails

    The Burden Of Hope - 2023 Reissue

      GRAILS don’t mince words. Awesomely communicative but entirely instrumental, this dynamic band’s violin, guitars, piano, and drums collide with sober melodies and massive emotion. At alternate moments, Grails can sound vaguely classical, Eastern European, Irish, like the lost tapes of Pauline Oliveros, and, you know, rock. They’re not really like anything else on the Neurot roster, but they’ve got something in common with all the Neurot bands: a commitment to intense music that forges new paths and, yeah, communicates in the most real way possible.

      Grails have their fair share of ambient noise - shivery violins, a trickle of a high-hat, the amplified scrape of a guitar string - but their music is based on strong, narrative melodies that resonate in the heart. At times it sounds delicate, but they never cower; Grails ROAR, even when they’re being quiet. The Burden of Hope is the debut LP, following a pair of self-released, eponymous ep’s in 2000 and 2002. The LP is the culmination of a year’s worth of recordings, including a reinterpretation of Sun City Girls’ classic “Space Prophet Dogon.”

      Grails are gathered in Portland, Oregon from Baltimore, Little Rock, Louisville, Chapel Hill, and Reno. As an ensemble, their respective backgrounds in hardcore, classical, folk, and rock blend seamlessly. Formed in late 2000 to execute live the bedroom recordings of guitarist Alex Hall, the oncetentatively-assembled group found unexpected success with both audiences and local press. Originally formed under the moniker Laurel Canyon, the name of the group was changed to Grails to coincide with the release of The Burden of Hope in October, 2003.

      TRACK LISTING

      Side A
      1. The Burden Of Hope
      2. Lord I Hate Your Day
      3. The Deed
      4. In The Beginning
      5. Invocation
      6. Space Prophet Dogon
      Side B
      7. The March
      8. Broken Ballad
      9. White Flag
      10. Canyon Hymn

      The first new album by GRAILS in six years. Features members of OM, HOLY SONS, LILACS & CHAMPAGNE, and WATTER. RIYL: Pink Floyd, Earth, OM, The Flaming Lips, Clams Casino. Rather than pick up where they left off, Grails take the sky-high riff-based heaviness of their earlier albums and distill it into a nuanced, widescreen opus. The perennial influences of mid-20th century Western film scores, obscure library music, and psychedelic krautrock are indelibly imprinted, but Chalice Hymnal exudes an eerie patience in unfurling the many layers of its subtle details.

      Produced by the band over the past five years, Chalice Hymnal bears some of the European psych and experimental hip-hop production techniques of founding members Alex Hall and Emil Amos' other group, Lilacs & Champagne. Amos' meditative metal band, Om, and longtime singer-songwriter project, Holy Sons, also naturally find their way into the Chalice cauldron. Rounding out their leaner line-up, cofounder Zak Riles (also of experimental kraut-psych trio, Watter) layers finger-picked acoustic guitars into a prog-folk hybrid that pushes Grails further into the deep end, displaying a profound resonance, both musically and emotionally. No one else sounds like Grails, and on Chalice Hymnal they sound more like themselves than ever before. 

      STAFF COMMENTS

      Barry says: One of my favourites for a long time, these lot. Add to that Amos's other projects Holy Sons and Lilacs & Champagne, and you have a whole wealth of musical musings to consider. It's obvious that influence has seeped into Grails itself, with the eastern influence much more pronounced and the patchwork found-sound collage vibes segued into their sound like it was there all along. A great return for Grails, and a cementing of their importance in experimental music.

      TRACK LISTING

      1. Chalice Hymnal (4:22)
      2. Pelham (2:49)
      3. Empty Chamber (2:33)
      4. New Prague (4:50)
      5. Deeper Politics (3:49)
      6. Tough Guy (3:57)
      7. Rebecca (3:47)
      8. Deep Snow II (5:48)
      9. The Moth & The Flame (4:07)
      10. Thorns II (3:59)
      11. After The Funeral (10:19)


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