| CD REVIEW Grenouer (Double Re-Issue) |
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Band : Grenouer Copro Records is definitely on a roll, as far as this St. Petersburg based Russian Death Metal act is concerned! I mean, the band may have signed over their 2008 album Lifelong Days to German/ Spanish label Locomotive, but the British label now follows earlier releases for the band (March 2008’s Try and February 2009’s re-issue of early 2004 released album Presence With War) with yet another re-issue…sorry double re-issue, for the two albums are put together one, near 74 minutes long, disc. For those interested in the band’s history, I gave a comprehesibly detailed account of the band’s earlier activities in the reviews I did before (check reviews section on 08/02/2009 but even more so 24/02/2008). Enough details available there, but I suppose I could highlight some facts about each of these albums, eh? 1999’s Gravehead was the band’s second full-length release, the band’s first recordings in three years, and sees guest keyboards performed by one Alexader Dronov. Besides mainstay and frontman Andrey “Ind” Merzylakov, and bassist Viatcheslav “Slavij” Kolchin, the band’s line-up at that moment also included drummer Sergey Lialin and guitarist Alexander Schatov. With 8 songs and a short intro, it was only 33 ½ minutes long, but sees the band weave a nicely complex tapestry, in which the keyboards certainly have a reasonably important role. Not that they incorporate any complex keyboard lines, but their atmospheric backings give the whole a “filled” feel, and thus add a degree of bombast to it! When the band returned to a studio (this time Navahohut in stead of Moskow’s Aria) to record their 3rd album The Odour O’ Folly, they had exchanged the guitarist for Alexander “Motor” Sokolov, and returned to a more straight-forward, yet catchier type of Death Metal. Among the 9 tracks, which total a listening time of just over 40 minutes, the A-Ha cover “Take On Me” kinda tops the catchy side of the album, yet is quite in tune with the rest. Reasons for the band’s more straight-forward approach can certainly be found in the fact that at the same time the band members were finding relief for those kind of muical expressions in their Industrial side-project COD. Bottom line, you get two great albums for the price of one, and any lover of good Death Metal would have to have his head checked, if he weren’t at least tempted to finally add this top Russian Death Metal act’s older material to his/her collection. I love…I mean, I LOVE these guys, and for good reason! Check out whether you can be brought to feel the same by surfing to either the band’s website (grenouer.com) or MySpace (.com/grenouer), and listen to the audio material available! 98/100 Tony. |
