
Graal
Chapter IV
Jolly Roger Records
2015
I must fess up that I didn’t know Graal prior to this release and that with a Nordic Black Metal inspired like that, this Italian quintet’s style, caught me by surprise, as it wasn’t quite what the name had me expecting. This is their fourth album and they allege it’s their most mature, which I cannot argue with...
In fact, surprises kept crawling up as the opener “Little Song” is a soft folk inspired number with flute and mellow singing only after the second minute and had me expecting a certain overall “folk”/”softer” style, so imagine my surprise when the band crunched out, some 70s/80s inspired rock on “Pick Up All the Faults” complete with organ etc... the album goes on pretty much in a similar way, with the band showing a decent amount of chops, their singer, being much better than the majority of Italians, who are either completely outstanding, but often too “cocky” and vie for the “spotlight”. This guy, knows his limitations and wisely avoids the pitfalls that would expose his weaknesses.
“Shadowplay” which ain’t a Gallagher cover, has a nice solo, but, unfortunately not much else going on for it. And that holds true for most of the album... while the band genuinely attempts to create something memorable, they cannot yet, rise above average to pretty decent, mainly due to their lack of catchy choruses. They do throw a couple of curveballs with the odd interesting arrangement here or there, but overall they just fail to make the mark.
Not bad and certainly worth checking out, but not the band that will change your life… they do have potential though.
In fact, surprises kept crawling up as the opener “Little Song” is a soft folk inspired number with flute and mellow singing only after the second minute and had me expecting a certain overall “folk”/”softer” style, so imagine my surprise when the band crunched out, some 70s/80s inspired rock on “Pick Up All the Faults” complete with organ etc... the album goes on pretty much in a similar way, with the band showing a decent amount of chops, their singer, being much better than the majority of Italians, who are either completely outstanding, but often too “cocky” and vie for the “spotlight”. This guy, knows his limitations and wisely avoids the pitfalls that would expose his weaknesses.
“Shadowplay” which ain’t a Gallagher cover, has a nice solo, but, unfortunately not much else going on for it. And that holds true for most of the album... while the band genuinely attempts to create something memorable, they cannot yet, rise above average to pretty decent, mainly due to their lack of catchy choruses. They do throw a couple of curveballs with the odd interesting arrangement here or there, but overall they just fail to make the mark.
Not bad and certainly worth checking out, but not the band that will change your life… they do have potential though.