The soulful accapella ‘Baby I Don’t Know Right Now’ makes for a misleading and surprising start to Jason Grier’s album, especially in context of the heavy words on the sticker on the CD’s outer. It’s immediately followed by ‘Der Wind Und das Meer’, a hushed acoustic song that broods melancholy, as if Leonard Cohen had invented post-rock when he recorded ‘Songs of Love and Hate’.
Vaporous post-rock ambience tinges a number of the songs, trickling delicately into malleable sonic spaces, their sweetness edged with shadows. The mesmerising ‘Helen of Troy II’ is a strong example of the power of repetition, building like a mystical mantra. There’s an air approaching religious awe woven through the album’s atmosphere, but at times, that atmosphere is rent by extraneous noise: the rising buzz that obliterates the soft string arrangement on ‘Cover Me’ ; ‘Gravity Well’ bears similarities to Her Name is Calla and Swans in their softest moments, but a menacing bass resonates beneath the gently strummed chords.
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Understated, but powerful.
Jason Grier Online
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