Grails are - despite their status as one of its biggest bands - a bit of an anomaly in the post-rock world. While their contemporaries are busy concocting their own versions of Godspeed You! Mogwai in the Sky, Grails act like they've never heard of them. More to the point, Grails act like they haven't heard of anything that wasn't released during the 70's, and they've honed in on a sound that's as deliciously retro-psych as it is post-anything. They're closer to tantric drug music like Six Organs of Admittance and Acid Mothers Temple than to Mono & Co. Equal parts jazz-fusion textures, droning kraut-prog, middle and far-eastern instruments, and blustery hard rock, their sound is blissfully their own, and it's for this reason, I suspect, that almost everyone who's into instrumental rock has at least heard their name. Their commanding live show probably hasn't hurt either. For listeners like myself, Grails has legitimized the genre during a prolonged drought of new, forward-thinking bands, and they've done this, ironically, with one foot firmly planted in the past. Their last album was the best thing they'd done yet and was met with the recognition it deserved, and 2008 has seen them striking while the iron remains smoldering, delivering first an EP that teased as much as it satisfied (but the satisfying moments were oh-so-very), and now another full-length.
And it's good. Let's get this settled right off the bat: it's not Burning Off Impurities. Once you've gotten over that, however, give the album a chance to reveal its personality. Grails have not, thankfully, found a rut to settle in, as comfortable as that rut may have been for them. Doomsdayer's Holiday sees the band still restless, exploring, with heavy nods to noir and proto-ambient kosmich music - elements that have been in their sound since the Black Tar Prophecies, but never as fully-admitted or integrated as they are here. Not that the sound has changed - this is still, unmistakably, a Grails album. And if it's less consistently spectacular than last year's effort, it's still remarkably solid for a band on their fourth release in three years, and remarkably successful for an album that's more daring than almost everything else released in the field of instrumental rock this year.
Where the last two albums felt like extended tribal tapestries punctuated by psychedelic interludes, Doomsdayer's Holiday feels more like a miasma, a foreboding ether out of which disparate, yet related, creations arise. It begins ominously enough, with the seasick riffage of the title track that might be taken as evidence of Emil Amos's recent tenure in Om, but probably just reflects the fact that Grails have always loved Black Sabbath, before sliding into that ether and giving birth to the Middle Eastern folk and furious rocking of "Reincarnation Blues." So far, so good - these two tracks are an impressive opening movement, and they act as a summation of everything that's kickass and awe-inspiring about the band. Things begin to get weirder with "The Natural Man," however, as subdued noir-jazz, flutes and all, becomes the order of the day. Grails have always had noir leanings, but this is the furthest in this direction they've ever gone. Fortunately, it's a beautiful song, one that works perfectly on the album and stands proudly alongside purveyors of neo-noir such as Bohren & der Club of Gore or The For Carnation.
If the album has a hole in it, it's right in the center - "Immediate Mate," although heavy on atmosphere, is content to wander without a focus for almost six minutes, and, never justifies its existence. It's not awful, but it single-handedly prevents Doomsdayer's Holiday from reaching the heights of Burning Off Impurities. Thankfully, the band finds their groove again on "Predestination Blues," which starts out with the band's majestic raga-rock before dropping the listener into a droning proto-ambient, lose-your-mind midsection, and then comes back for the finale. The proto-ambient influences continue in the creepy "X-Contaminators," and "Acid Rain" ends the album on a decidedly Floydian note, sounding like something off the first half of Meddle.
Doomsdayer's Holiday is the least immediate album that Grails have done, and that alone may alienate many looking for a repeat of their past. It's also a good reminder of why it's not really accurate to think of Grails as a post-rock band anymore - the days of Redlight are gone, and the band shows no interest whatsoever in reprising them or appealing to fans of that style. Grails are traveling now in deeper, murkier waters -- the variegated strains of psychedelic, trance-inducing 70's music -- and each release seems to push them further down this well. Some people will bemoan this. As long as the results remain this compelling, I'm on board.
-Lucas Kane