Labels: self released
Review by: Vicki Aiken
The thing I most remember about driving in the States was the way American songs sound so much more compelling in their own context. GRNB is a project from Brooklyn resident Oscar Albis Rodriguez, but this 8 song CD was recorded mostly in the sparse, wooded expanses of Gildford, Vermont. Though Google street view only gave me a glimpse into this small town, dropping my little orange man nearby I found a sun bleached landscape with a covered bridge, clapboard churches, and pickup trucks riding the cracked roads. The artist described these recordings as “a very real document of us. Musicians playing songs the way we actually sound.” I wonder how playing songs out to the foot of the Green Mountains, after the drive from Brooklyn influenced the variety of styles and emotions on this recording.
It is an album of contrast. The coarse tones of Oscar’s vocals on opener The Curtain call make his repeated plea of “please give me something to hold onto” later in the track all the more affecting. Guitars wrench themselves from the solid structure of “Watching me, Watching you” to shriek their protestations. They are let loose on “Pilots”. The lyrics question, request, and then demand a more real way of living. Most songs end by burning up into feedback, sometimes almost before they feel finished, but after the message is clear. Two dramatically different covers add even more variety, Small Factory’s “Last time we talked” and “Obviously Midnight” by Scarce.
Given how different the tracks are, you are likely to enjoy at least one song on this album. If you are me you will get to track 7, in the Helium Mines, and wish with all your heart that your cheap car stereo had a repeat button. I would be quite happy to let loose Oscar’s guitars and Brendan’s backup screams of “weighted” far beyond 2m15s.