Grimble Grumble

As you're probably aware, media outlets like Splendid often receive CDs well in advance of their street dates -- for example, we've had Low's The Great Destroyer for two months already and it's not due in stores for another month and a half. Leaves Leader, however, takes the prize for Album That's Been Floating Around the Office the Longest: Grimble Grumble percussionist Mike Bulington gave us a rough copy in the spring of 2003, after the band opened for Kinski. That's right -- you're about to read a review that's been a year and a half in the making.

Leaves Leader is Grimble Grumble's first new album in seven years; ironically, they went on hiatus just as post-shoegazer space rock was experiencing its upswing in popularity, and have returned to the game now that the peak has passed. It's hard to tell whether that's by design, or merely a quirk of scheduling, but it doesn't mattere -- Grimble Grumble aren't prone to rock star posturing and don't appear to be overly interested in making it big. Live, they seem doggedly, studiously calm, as if they haven't noticed that the audience is present; even their most frenzied strumming moves slower than the sound itself, sending ripples through the air like a swimmer in a pool filled with cough medicine. On record, that determined calm becomes an infectious placidity, but it's rooted in awe and wonder. Grimble Grumble never go for Mogwai's grand, crashing, cathartic climaxes, but find glorious focus in an extended groove or a repeated motion. The overall affect is like watching the sun come up while you're having sex: a grand spectacle distilled into a modest but intense point of focus. Think Bardo Pond without the pervasive stoner vibe, or Kinski after a week without caffeine. While other bands sell the peaks, the valleys, the big finish, Grimble Grumble focus on the actual trip -- no pun intended.

Appreciating Leaves Leader's highlights, then, requires a certain amount of finesse, or at least the ability to detune your critical focus. That means being satisfied with "Rail Road"'s glittery, kaleidoscopic melody and singer Christine Garcia's detached, feather-light vocals, even if they're the payoff rather than the wind-up. It means getting excited when "Casanova" segues from its sprawling melody into a throbbing, syncopated strum that sounds as if it were lifted from a stillborn sixties Britpop tune, even when there's no big blowout at the end to clean the pipes. It means that you still shiver the twenty-seventh time you hear "Wish Song" make the transition from shiny shoegazer pastiche to blustery, transformative haze of overdriven notes and crash cymbals, and that you get all fist-pumpy when "Third Song" finally reaches its third-act shift from exploratory sonic maelstrom to purposeful, Velvet Underground-inspired jamming.

It goes without saying, then, that Leaves Leader is neither an obvious, immediate success nor the sort of record whose measure you can grasp in a single spin. It's quick to embroil you in its musical economy of scale -- requiring you to slow down, to focus your brain cells on "Fall"'s undulating, carpet-like melody and bristling, textured psych-rock haze, rather than signposting its way to the big rock-out. The more you focus, the more you'll hear; in that respect, Leaves Leader is like a musical fractal.

Just don't get too wrapped up in the details. Once the album has you under its spell, no other sensory data penetrates the bubble. Before you know it, you'll lose track of time itself -- you'll think you've been listening for a few weeks, and then -- pow! -- eighteen months will have gone by. - www.splendidezine.com

“Leaves Leader” is a warm rush of blasted shoegaze and space rock swells, and often more upbeat than what’s come before from Grimble Grumble. The untitled opener is 40 seconds of oscillating feedback and ambient noise before the languid “Rail Road” effortlessly washes the listener in a bath of shimmering guitars, bass and drums, and gets the cherry on top in the form of hazy fem vocals. The breathing rhythms slowly gain momentum and sprout into a nice lazy noise swirl. That’s all fine and good, but then comes the slightly faster “Casanova,” with heaven-sent distortion washes and mellow guitar runs that evolve into a monster psych-pop groove that wouldn’t be out of place on the first Pink Floyd album, before things veer back to murky drone pop land by the time you’ve been roused from your slumber. The next two tracks are my picks of the bunch though. “Wish Song” builds exquisitely from another of those haunted plaintive melodies to a storm of cymbal crash and screaming fuzz guitars. “Third Song” (actually the 5th track) takes a similar path with even more ethereal results before switching gears into fierce Krautrock jam that’s truly devastating and glorious at the same time. “Intro” (actually the 6th track!) is a heavy lumbering jam with a solid echo-drenched beat backing all manner of improvised squalls and searing distortion runs from the twin guitar attack, and it totally kills. While the dusted acoustic guitars and warbling drones of “Fall” bear more than a passing resemblance to prime Bardo Pond; this can only be intended as praise, but Grimble Grumble fully inhabits the din of ominous melting backwoods acid rock as if they wrote the book. “Emma Sleeping Blues” closes things out on something of stoned blues note that I wish would go on forever, but six minutes is just about right. “Leaves Leader” is quite simply the bomb. - Lee Jackson - www.foxydigitalis.com

GRIMBLE GRUMBLE
- LEAVES LEADER

They said it would last forever. Godamned optimists! I knew we'd been lied to.
Grimble Grumble existed only in the minds of those who claim to have known them or heard their music.

Föreställ dig, sensommarnatt – på druckna ben vinglar du grusvägen mot sjön. Huvudet är tungt och varmt, jeansen klibbar mot benen. Gruset glider under fötterna och du bibehåller balansen endast genom att krama ölburken i högerhand. Långt borta anar du trafiken. Skogen rör sig baklänges och Christine Garcias röst söver dig, lockar dig längre och längre bort.
Sjön är som ett svart hål, en osynlig kraftkälla. Du ramlar med huvudet före i vattnet, sjunker sakta. På ytan skingras ringarna rytmiskt. Du välkomnar kylan och mörkret. Huvudet snurrar sakta, du sparkar uppåt för luft. Det var längesedan du tappade fokus på omvärlden.
Skivan "Leaves leaders första anonyma spår och nummer två, "Rail road" har passerat.

Grimble Grumble spelar melankoliskt indieskrammel, det finns ett djup att falla i. De flesta låtarna är instrumentala, de andra har Christine Garcias sång. Sång som känns mycket, mycket långt borta.

Du vaknar upp, huvudet spränger. Du vet inte vart du är någonstans, men det är skönt att vara ensam. Myggen som bits besvärar dig inte, det är bara den jävla huvudvärken du vill bli av med. Från rygg vänder du dig på mage och försöker få benen att bära. Träden är dubbelt så många nu, och vägen du kom på är längre än förut.
Josh Hudson och Saleem Dhamees oroväckande gitarrer får dig att längta hem. Mike Bulingtons trummor bankar hårt i tinningarna. "Wish Song".

Grimble Grumbles musik är som en fläta. Alla delar knyts noggrant mot varandra. Bas mot gitarr, gitarr mot trummor, trummor mot sång, sången mot känslan.

"Third song", som egentligen är skivans femte låt är den varma filten någon sveper runt dig.
Duntäcket du drar över huvudet och de blöta kläderna du slutligen får av dig.
En hänsynslös baksmälla är din sängkamrat. Tabletten du tar för fördriva den, påminner starkt om Spiritulizeds "Ladys and gentlemen we are floating in space".
Snabbvärkande till skillnad från Spiritulized, men lika skonsam mot lever och själ. Försiktig och säker, som en spindel i sig eget nät balanserar den på sköra trådar och spinner nya nät, trots den fåackordiga musiken.

Bakfylleångest – dina ögonlock visar suddiga fragment likt diabilder. "Intro".
Du vet att det kommer lätta, men tiden dit är inget annat än ett vakuum. En hink bredvid sängen och en vattenflaska. Du har varit här förut och ångrat dig. Idag är det värt det. Alla pengar, all tid är värd sådana här kvällar, sådana här skivor.
"Emma sleeping blues - Sömnen smyger sig på. Du drömmer behagligt, du är tillfredsställt och tagen. Omfamnande ackord och effektfulla bakgrundsljud ger mer att finna vid varje lyssning.
Det känns som om "Leaves leaders" bär på en sanning som man måste ta del av. Skivan är kraftfull utan att använda självklara krafttag. Den är smart och mystiken talar och aktiverar ett välbefinnandehormon. Skivan får mig att känna, på gott och ont. Efter flera ep:s och två fullängdsalbum är det här det sista vi får av Grimble Grumble. Tyvärr.
- www.twee.nu

Underground space rock vets Grimble Grumble (name taken from a gnome in a Pink Floyd song) are back with another solid batch of songs, all ready to take your breath (and heart) away. Formed almost ten years ago in Chicago, the band features Christina Garcia, Josh Hudson, Mike Bulington, and Saleem Dhamee. After seven long years of inactivity, Pehr Records has released Leaves Leader, containing eight new songs, with the band taking a more rock advent than previously before. None of the tracks are exceedingly lengthy, nor does any one cut rather stick out or bear anything unique or individual. However, the theme is a solid consistency that carries throughout most of the album. This is perfect for a late afternoon drive, or a leisurely amble in the park, with nothing ever becoming too obtrusive or loud. "Wish Song" derives influences from Pink Floyd to Flying Saucer Attack, all the while carving out its own little niche that could fit in no other place than that of the Grimble Grumble catalog. Leaves Leader quickly restores my faith in quality emotional art. "Fall" continues the introspective, slowly ascending dynamics accumulated from the prior tracks, with fading and swirling vocals that hover in space before being diffused through the air by a steady combination of chaos and melody. I don't know precisely what that voice singing about, but it doesn't seem to matter too much in this case, as the vocals seem to exist only as balmy murmurs flirting in the background. Instead of being clear and upfront, Garcia's shushed vocals are subdued and effectively buried underneath the churning of the other instruments. This only adds another welcome dimension to the sound of Grimble Grumble. Unearthing layers of build and decay, construction and destruction, "Emma Sleeping Blues" is a fine conclusion to Leaves Leader . This band works on a level that is not quite at consciousness, a state of mind where my eyes have just started to flutter open, perhaps just before actual awareness has begun. I feel like a newborn listening to this record, everything immediately seems new, all my images and thoughts are unbroken, with cascading sparkles of a plucked stringed instrument slowly penetrating through a dense, yet stark wash of paper-thin mist. If dreams have audio, this must be pretty darn close to what it sounds like. - Kevin Chong - www.brainwashed.com