Review Summary: Careful lest you fall over with the front so heavy.
Grails are no strangers to convolution. In the tricky business of instrumental music, one needs to impress with more than reliance on the standard Western tradition of verse-verse-chorus-verse-bridge-chorus or a variation thereof. The general context of a soundscape within an instrumental’s frame must surely entail more to it than cliché standards set by conventional vocally-led music. The 90s surge of post-rock paved way for cathartic, crescendo-obsessed stargazing theatrics that would go on to define the bulk of instrumental rock within or outside of post-rock for years to come. Grails come into this with the mission of de-escalate this trajectory of overproduced crescendos that scream “be impressed, this is beautiful”. See, Grails’ approach to the matter is for those a bit more in-the-know.
Now, I am anything but in-the-know. I know a little, but I am not in “the”. Point me out an instrument and I will be able to name it. But ask me the fidelity settings, the gear used, the pedal switches, the mix achievability, and I will most likely pretend to not speak your language and awkwardly back out of the room. Grails are notorious for crafting sounds perceptible for sound technicians and musicians with experience, but often falling on deaf ears for the commonfolk. Theirs is the highly technical detailed work of engineers constructing objects of utility, serving a purpose, rather than aesthetics. Again, not anything close to your typical run-of-the-mill post-rock deluge of crushing guitars, all as delicate as a cinderblock falling on your head and about as pretty as the aftermath. Subdue these tendencies, layer it nicely with ambient undertones, cascading patience, jam and blues rock influences, and you got yourself an average Grails record.
That is not to say that Grails do not go big in scope or sound. The sheer engineering detail in their music here is admirable,
Anches En Maat has plenty engrossing tunes, building layers of instruments into a kaleidoscope, coming near the territory of a bloated crescendo, but cleverly never falling over directly into it. So much is obvious from the get-go, as the opener “Sad and Illegal” is perhaps the most linear post-rock-y cut on the album, building steadily towards an explosion. Its backing strings underline nicely the retrofuturistic sound penned by the synths and soft guitars on the forefront. The wavy synths, however, become the protagonist of the whole album, as the following “Viktor’s Night Map” veers into distant echoic territory, shaping even the bluesy acoustic guitar into a form of backing bleep bloops. The general haze of the second track sets the tone for the rest of the album at large, making the opener quite the stylistic misdirect.
It is by the third track, “Sisters of Bilitis”, that the album’s core strengths, as well as its flaws, become glaring. Those of us routinely receiving Youtube’s algorithmic music recommendations know the gigantic amount of often indistinguishable 80s jazz fusion or futuristic rock pushed weekly. This style seems exactly what Grails are going for on
Anches En Maat. Synthy to the core, elaborately constructed by professional instrumentalists, playing as a special treat to the technically-minded listeners, who grok* the intricacies of gear and production behind each sound. But the track is once again encased in haze, clutching at spaceship-themed disjointed instrumental licks, until the rim-click and cymbal percussion bring it all together into a nicely succinct post-ambient-rock piece that only builds into a more orchestral layered composition complete with its own liquid crescendo. It is pretty in the subtle-most way, it is drawn out but not to a fault. It is, however, a showcase of the band chasing a mythic sound that they keep dancing around, without ever quite grabbing it, as the track’s explosive finale shows. They just want the 80s sound again, pampered up, ass-slapped, and ready for consumption. I cannot blame them, but I can point out when their work suffers as a result.
The suffering in question is mainly concentrated towards the end of the album. After the fantastic dreamy “Pool of Gems”, the focus shifts to a non-descript imprecision with “Evening Song”. This cut follows all the same beats established before, from the synth background layers, serenading guitar front, gentle percussion, overall fogginess, but also lacks anything substantive in structure. It effectively kicks off like an interlude that builds ever so slightly before fizzling out on half-asnooze, not really providing justification for its inclusion. Too long for an interlude, too inconsequential for a full track. In a similar way, “Black Rain”, despite featuring some of the most abstract sound design and mixing choices on the album, ultimately comes off as a mini-excerpt from something that should have been much longer, more pronounced, more punching. This also fizzles out into nothing much. The final twelve-minute title track provides very little satisfying conclusion for the album. Its core premise seems to be to reaffirm all the nifty tricks the band has employed throughout the record. The track seems to go in and out of composition, exchanging arpeggios for ambiance in a rather uncharacteristically indecisive manner. It floats on an uneven pace, cool instrumental backing trick to the other, committing fully to none, gradually dissolving and reassembling into more ambient drowse. Admittedly, the album as a whole more-or-less inched towards this anticlimactic finale from the beginning, but at least the tracks by themselves usually had a semblance of conclusive direction. After twelve minutes, this provides nothing not already said by the album before, fails to capture its strengths, and again, much like the two preceding cuts, fizzles to lord-knows-what pits of haze, just as confused as it came in.
In the tricky business of instrumental music, one needs to impress on a level far different from the standard cliché Western tradition too hell-bent on similar frames. In a grander scheme of instrumental rock, Grails have found a sweet spot of appealing primarily to those interested in studio music on a cerebral level, deciphering engineering, mixing, and production tricks with a magnifying glass (ear?). I, being out-the-know like the average, can scarcely judge the nooks and crannies of each miniscule guitar tone presented on the album. But I can hear a lacking direction when I hear one. All so carefully winded up like a clock in the first half meets an untimely demise at the shaky hands of rushed song-writing in the latter half. The band shines when they apply progressive structures onto old-school gentleness, giving pastiches a refreshingly modern twist. But their reluctance to venture outside of the comfortable linear blandness of pure technicality is a great detriment.
*Thank you Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day for teaching me this lovely lil wordicle.
