LP Review: "IV" by Grayceon

IV

About a month ago, while my daughter was helping me prepare dinner, she said to me...

Daddy did you know that my favorite people in rock and metal are boys?

Now, as she's a 100% Daddy's Girl, it was clear what she was trying to do. She was saying, see Daddy, I love you so much that I love people who look like you too.

I did what any loving father should be do after he saw that his daughter didn't have heroes that look like her...

We spent the next 30 minutes going through my phone, youtube, and whatever busting out the best women in hard rock and heavy metal. As an American White Male, there are no shortage of heroes who look like me.

Grayceon

It's important that my daughter, your daughter, and somebody who we don't know's daughter has the same thing.

Especially  now.

So, let's consider San Francisco's Grayceon.

Must. Resist. Tales. Of SF...

It's an awesome city that's been a part of a great many movements in the United States.

Not only did it produce Janis Joplin, but also Metallica.

Grayceon is a band that fits somewhere between those two extremes, well no, that's inaccurate. Grayceon exists farther to the right of Joplin and farther to the left of Metallica.

Musically, they've got guitars, drums, vocals, and a cello. Now, that's not terribly different, but it's the execution. Hearing strings in metal is as common as blast beats, but what if a band could use the cello as a main instrument rather than simply a coloring instrument?

Before today, it would've seemed an impossible task. But here we are.

There's nothing gimmicky about this band, the cello, or having a lady involved. This band is fucking metal. This album is amazing.

Doom to death. Classical to baroque.

Clean to screams.

It's impossible to pigeon hole them into a single subgenre, instead they play in all of them and none of them. It's musical and vicious.

It's hideously beautiful.

Release: 5/18/18
Genre: Metal
Label: Translation Loss Records
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