Dryvetyme Onlyne

Grayceon
This Grand Show
Vendlus; 2008

Metal is a complicated, yet imminently rewarding, genre, filled with more twists, turns, and permutations than most other forms of rock music. Even though there are some staple sounds and elements that must be present to earn the acceptance of metalheads, there is ample room within the distorted guitars, furiously technical lead lines, epic vocals and lyrics, and thickly pounding drums for a band to carve out a sound that’s all their own. Moreover, it’s simply more entertaining to conduct a debate over the contrasts between Metallica, Pantera, As I Lay Dying, and Sunn O))) than to discourse regarding the differences between The Shins, The Decemberists, Death Cab For Cutie, and Modest Mouse. Metal has always instilled in its fans a passionate dedication that indie rock (and other forms of rock) simply can’t match, and it’s that passion that metalheads always cling to and proclaim loudly when defending their bands over yours.

All of that being said, the music of Grayceon should present a welcome challenge to the hearts and minds of metal fans, as the group brings together crunching guitars and thunderous drums with a cello and dueling female-male vocals with startling efficacy. Based out of San Francisco, CA, this trio is set to release their sophomore full-length, entitled This Grand Show, and the record is just that: a beautiful confluence of neo-classical music, classic metal, and drone, all wrapped up with a lovely progressive bow. It is the cello work of Jackie Perez Gratz that provide the foundation for each song, as she capably weaves her instrument between acting as the lead instrument in some scenarios and the foundational bass line in others. The standout tracks are the opener “It Begins, And So It Ends,” which serves the closest thing to a lead single, complete with the prototypical verse-chorus-verse-chorus-breakdown-chorus-coda construction that is so familiar to metal, and “Sleep,” the epic, twenty-one-minute, three-part piece that features a spacey cello intro and subsequent interludes amongst sections of dense, baroque dirges. Ambitious, open-minded music fans, both metal-heads and not, will find much to acclaim, discuss, and defend with the music of Grayceon, especially if their tastes tend toward complex, ever-building anthems that never tip over into preening pretension.