Grammatics

The last time I posted on here about music, I was drunk at about 3AM, Wolf Queen laughed at my typo-littered post, and I deleted it.

There's an album coming out later this month that everyone (even EmP) needs to buy. It's the Grammatics debut.

I "bagsied" this review over at TLOBF ages ago, then the editor forgot and assigned it to someone else. Who then decided that, though he loved it, he didn't really know how to approach the review, so he handed it on to me. More detailed thoughts will be readable over at www.thelineofbestfit.co.uk some time soon, I think.

It's the best debut album I've heard in a long time. The best album I've heard in ages, actually, full stop. It's lined with the sort of elegance of good post-rock, but it's distinctly a pop record. The lyrics are poetic, but in an intelligent, insightful way, not in an introspective-teen manner. The vocals are haunting. The arrangement is beautiful. It's just fantastic.

It's out on Dance to the Radio on March 23d. In the UK at least - I don't know if it's getting a US release, though I'd imagine it'll be doing the iTunes rounds.

A couple of singles:

Grammatics - Shadow Committee from Dance To The Radio on Vimeo.

'Dilemma' video for the Leeds band Grammatics from Marcus Macaulay on Vimeo.

Comments 2

wolfqueen001 Mar 12, 2009

Haha. I thought you deleted that beause you were drunk and found it embarrassing, not because I made fun of you! =P I actually did feel kind of bad about that, though, because you were showing off some of your own stuff or something (I don't remember) and felt like you shouldn't have necessarily gotten rid of it just because of the circumstances in which it was posted.

Anyway, I just watched both those videos and I have to say I rather liike them. It's probably the most "new" (and diverse) thing I've heard in a while, which is kind of nice.

I will say that the vocals feel strangely reminiscent of a sort of.... I dunno... My Chemical Romance or Fallout Boy (bad comparisons, I'm sure; sorry, but that kind of boy-bandish pop sound is what I'm trying to get at; I'm not a music critic!), only, you know, good. So it's definitely not a bad thing. I guess what I was trying to get at was that they sounded kind of familiar without actually being famiiar. Or something.

Cool stuff. Honestly can't say whether EmP'll like it, though. Haha. I think he likes maybe 2 bands in all the world or something (=P). But you never know. =D

honestgamer Staff Mar 12, 2009

I watched both videos. While I can see that they clearly have talent and are capable of making excellent arrangements, all the skill in the world doesn't matter to me if I don't like the end result. Music is a personal thing, and this music didn't do much for me. Certainly, there are a lot of other songs that have been recommended on these blogs that I liked a lot less, but this isn't something I'd buy on iTunes or rush to the store to purchase. It's something I probably wouldn't turn the radio station away from if one of their songs came on while I was driving in my car. Mostly, that comes down to me not particularly caring for the lead singer's voice. I did like the instrumental variety in there, which is something I generally do appreciate in music, and there were some nice bits when the guy wasn't singing, but... well, that's it, I guess. Even though I didn't care for this particular group, I think I'll pay more attention the next time you recommend some music.