Gris Gris

The Gris Gris | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (August 17, 2004)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Birdman
• ASIN: B0002IQKGI
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #306,301 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The dark sonic space-flights of Gris Gris's debut, May 29, 2005

By 

Wickerlove "Wickerlove" (Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gris Gris (Audio CD)

Gris Gris are more instrumentalists as they are musicians, one part late 60's psychadelia, one part sonic-flights, falling somewhere in between The Velvet Undergound and Hawkwind. Their self-titled constantly shifts from a dark-spacey-experimental feel, eg, Can meets Spacemen 3, to more feedback-laced psychadelia, echoing vocals and distorted guitar shrieks, falling somewhere in between The Raveonettes/BRMC and the snarling twang of The Nuggets II series. It's really an interesting fusion of styles, lots of fuzzy noise and mind-bending noodling, yet with flashes of groovy melodies and acoustic ballads. Gris Gris, perhaps the darker spaced-out cousin of The Brian Jonestown Massacre, cannot be faulted for pushing the limits, but as the BJM is about retro space-cowboy melodies, Gris Gris is about symphonic astral-travelling to the stars.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars good psychedelic rock, March 9, 2005

By 

Anthony Desimone "gribshnobler" (Myrtle Beach, SC USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Gris Gris (Audio CD)

I got this at a local used CD store where I'm known very well.

The owner thought I might like based only on the name (anytime he sees something with a weird name that he's never heard of

he always thinks of me first : )

I hadn't heard of this band either, but I listened to it in the store and I was hooked.

This is definitely a psychedelic band, they remind me of a cross between The Velvet Underground and 60's Pink Floyd, but of course some of the songs don't sound like either of them.

The lineup is a basic guitar, bass, and drums group (with a couple guest musicians on three of the tracks), the music however, is not basic at all, but often experimental and rather creative.

After listening to it a few times I find the only song I don't care for is the first track "Raygun" everything else is great.

It always feels good to find a rare gem in a used CD store, and this is no exception. I look forward to hearing more from this band in the future.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a slow boil: this one grew on me., April 28, 2010

By 

N. Huston (at large) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Gris Gris (Audio CD)

what if lou reed had been frontman for the 13th floor elevators? or the elevators and velvet underground indulged in a week-long, psychedelic-fueled jam session? this might approximate the result. occasional bursts of noisy feedback - never out of context - act as bridges between softer and harder passages throughout the disc, and the whole thing conveys a strong texas/louisiana garage/psych vibe.

i was lured in by hearing 'necessary separation' on pandora, and bought the disc when i found it a little later. the lead track - 'raygun'- i detested at first listen, skipping to the next at the 2:00 mark. sad for me, as i missed the song kicking into high gear around 3:30... it, in the understated words of monty python, "got better." the rest of the cd is a mixture of slower introspection and flat-out raunch-n-roll. not quite what i was expecting (harder and faster, based on my pandora experience), which was a little off-putting at first, but a solid, well-played set of songs nonetheless.

good debut from a band that knows its classics. i'll keep listening.