Product Description

Skirr is the third album to be released on Big Red Sky, following God-like Shapes (2003) and Apolaustic (2007). The previous Grant albums were heavily indebted to formative influences such as Scott Walker's solo albums, late period Talk Talk, and early 1980's post-punk groups including Magazine and Joy Division. Elements of dub, industrial and electro also permeated these orchestrated, melancholic songs. Skirr contains echoes and whispers of these influences, but filters them through a denser, more opaque lens. The dark baritone vocals and adherence to melody remain central, but the predominant sound is harder, based around treated guitars, low-end bass, electronic crunches, flutters and sampled percussion. The album begins with the mechanoid clatter of Null in which is buried a barely-decipherable voice possibly remembering a former lover. Exeat is an industrial squall of vitriol and yearnings for escape. The undeniably gothic leanings of Where You Go are followed by Acres to Hectares , where arid, sparse verses are married to spiraling choruses of guitars, bass and acid- washed keyboards. Prometheous is the closest the album comes to a pop song, whilst He was, She was contrasts the tender, contrite narrator of the verses with the misanthropic hectoring of the chorus. The album continues with the electro pop/gabba hybrid Grace , the exodus song Isthmus , existential paean Below the Salt before Shellac Skin mixes overblown a cappella/vaudeville blues, a canoe and the Apocalypse with Ministry - influenced riffs and ELO vocal styling to tell a tale of redemption. Last song on the album is Scent and Snow. A love song. Simple. Then you can meditate...

Review

Possessed of a voice that could blow the roof off a cathedral, Grant Baldwin never seems to do anything by halves when it comes to his music. In the late-80s he fronted [Oxford] rock faves No Joy In Mudville, but his solo recordings since those days have revealed far more expansive horizons and, like one of his heroes, Scott Walker, Grant s mission seems to be to drag sounds, images, words from the very depths of his soul, like an opera singer reaching right down to hit those final, resonant notes that will sweep everything before them. Grant s voice totally dominates this album, and rightly so it s a fantastic, booming beast of a voice with a languid opulence about it that adds extra gravity to songs that never shy away from OTT subject matter the legend of Prometheus for example or delve into almost Gregorian depths. Sometimes you feel he s simply plucking words or phrases from the air because they sound weighty, but he gets away with it each time because his voice makes even the most preposterous lines sound natural. Behind Grant are Martin Newton (from Witches) and Pete Marler (formerly of Suitable Case For Treatment) and their swirling, cascading industrial doom, while taking a back seat for the most part, is perfect backdrop, exploding, when its needed, in thunderous moments of disquiet, billowing church organ crescendos, scouring metallic bass or simple, spidery guitar effects. It s goth, but not as we know it, Jim. --Nightshift magazine, May 2009