Kris Gruen - Coast & Refuge. Not what I was expecting. Described as folk-pop there’s a vast palate of sounds and flavors here, from bouncy power pop, to sunshine feel good jangle to introspective singer-songwriter and touches of Americana. Put him with Sufjan Stevens and Peter Yorn. All earnest and soul-stirring.
Delicious spin for a Sunday morning.
No surprise to see Tony Reed's name associated with this album, it has all the hallmarks of a T.Dallas Reed production, thick, and heavy and crisp. Wailing guitars and a bit of a punky attitude. Lord Ellis are a riff-quartet, born in the misty mountains of Northern California in 2011. There's a cool dichotomy of smooth and aggressive in every inch of this platter, that makes it stand out from the pack. As my Ripple brethren, Bucky, put's it, "Its a bit rough around the edges sounding like a punk band aged in a barrel of Humboldt County ganja." I couldn't a said it better myself.
Clouds Taste Satanic occupy a netherworld devoid of even the barest flicker of light. Putrid stench of sulfur wafts from the oozing wall of demonic blackness. Heavy is the word here. And by word, I mean adjective, adverb, noun and verb. They are just plain heavy, as in the realization of the word. And yet, somehow, to their credit, they mold this extreme antithesis of pop into structure excursions of instrumental stoner/doom that hold together as melodic underneath the Luciferian crust. Not an album for everyone, but if you want a listen to rattle the walls and the neighbors, give it a go.
--racer
