Grails - Burning Off Impurities Review

When I first listened to Black Tar Prophecies Vol's 1, 2, & 3 by Grails, it blew me away. Mixing together influences as wide as classic rock, doom, psychedelic, and yes, even world music, it was a heady rush of sound that found the group moving in an exciting new direction. Burning Off Impurities basically starts in the same place that they ended on that last release and continues pushing down the same path. There's still a wide variety of sounds at play here, but unlike their previous release (which was a compilation of tracks), this newest album sounds like one cohesive and fluid whole. ...full text My experience with Grails' last proper LP Red Light has been an interesting one. At first I rejected its use of folk sounds and unexpected modes, but then after hearing them employed well in the middle stretch of the album, I was won over. It wasn't that the modal choices in the middle were better or anything, it's just that the middle few songs are written so transcendently well, that their modalities are rendered all the more wonderful and memorable. ...full text Portland, Oregon-based quartet Grails made an unexpected left turn in 2005, using their entry in Southern Records’ Latitudes Series as an excuse to explore a track each from Flower Travellin’ Band, Gong, and the Byrds. Up until that point, the group’s volatile chemistry had yielded a couple of somewhat decent full-lengths for the Neurot label before co-founding violinist Timothy Horner drifted away and, one would assume, took the awkward pseudo-Celtic influence that had permeated the band’s early recordings with him....full text