Grayceon
(Vendlus Records; 2007)

Grayceon’s self-titled debut clocks in at just over 45 minutes and consists of four tracks of classically-inspired art metal. It is a baroque post metal opus that, despite bearing some evidence of being a first album, heralds a promising new band on the San Francisco scene. 

Though this is Grayceon’s first release, the band’s members are all veterans: Drummer Zack Farwell and guitarist/vocalist Max Doyle are members of Walken, while cellist/vocalist Jackie Perez Gratz is a member of Amber Asylum, both bands that have been on the SF metal scene for years. Combining all the best parts of their respective bands—the shredding power riffs of Walken and the orchestral, ambient rock of Amber Asylum—Grayceon creates a sound that is at times heavy, thrashing, and brutal and at other times lush, symphonic and mesmerizing.

Opening track “Sounds Like Thunder” sets the mood right away with a lone cello playing a mournful melody that is quickly joined by a guitar harmony and thumping drums. The song rises and falls like the tide: gradually but inevitably, with the threat of total devastation looming over it all. The album’s second track, “Song for You,” is the shortest and most straightforward rocker as well as the most traditional tune on the album in the sense that it’s the only track with the singing way out in the front of the mix. Most of the vocals are sung in a breathy, droning style and buried deeper in the mix in the manner of post rock/metal bands such as Isis or Mogwai. The last two movements of Grayceon, “Into the Deep” and “Ride,” together comprise more than thirty minutes and, as their titles suggest, take the listener on a journey that covers an impressive amount of sonic territory.  

Each track on Grayceon is a movement that ebbs and flows but ultimately builds to a crescendo in a more or less linear progression, which gives the compositions their distinctly classical feel. Though metal is the beast that stalks this entire album, there are just as many if not more low-key, tripped-out passages as there are monster riffs. Doyle’s guitar and Gratz’s cello share rhythm and lead duties pretty equally but always create intricate melodies by intertwining and playing off of each other in deep, complex arrangements that, at times, almost do evoke an entire symphony orchestra with just the two instruments. Meanwhile, Farwell’s drumming is powerful and lightning-quick; he is by turns a heavy metal drummer with serious chops and a free jazz drummer banging on the kit with carefully-controlled reckless abandon. The end result is that even the artier, more classical-sounding passages are shot through with the gravitas and menace of pure metal.

The only thing that stops Grayceon from being an undeniable masterpiece is that at times it has a demo-like feel to it that makes me aware I’m listening to a mere mortal band and pulls me out of the spell Grayceon weaves. I’m not sure whether this is due to the production—the mastering of the album certainly seems as if it could and should have brought more nuance and vibrancy out of the instruments, to make the lows more abysmal and the highs more soaring—or the sparse instrumentation—there are few overdubs (and the only overdubs I can hear are vocals) and no instruments other than the drums, cello, and guitar are ever brought into the mix. But albums can always be re-mastered, and the fact that Grayceon doesn’t hide behind a superfluity of layered sounds, but instead achieves a dense wall of sound with such minimal instrumentation, is impressive in its own right. Despite its minor technical shortcomings, Grayceon is a consistently surprising and refreshingly creative album.

 [Mike G.]

[STREAM] Grayceon: "Song For You"  

[STREAM] Grayceon: "Into the Deep"