Customer Reviews

Gris Gris

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

I first heard the Gris Gris on a local radio station. The song I heard was "Everytime" which is a really cool song, but not nearly as special as a lot of songs on here. It's one of those discs that you have to *love* immediately or you probably never will. It is "an anvil of perfection". Really.

Read 'bout them inna local paper.

bought the album a couple weeks later.

These guys are amazing.

Can't stop playing it.

go out and buy this album...right now!!