Send "A Grave With No Name " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 Alex Shields, the songwriter behind A Grave With No Name, is British, but you'd never guess it by his appearance. With long hair and a penchant for wearing Weezer tees, his look is straight out of 1990s alt America. Which fits, since A Grave With No Name (ostensibly a solo bedroom-pop project but now fleshed out as a three-piece) features many of the hallmarks of 90s guitar indie from this side of the pond-- Pavement slop, the crackle and fuzz of GBV, and so on. But Shields isn't a revisionist, more a mixed-genre collagist, and the other sounds he incorporates are decidedly of the moment-- lo-fi haze, hypnagogic pop pastiche, and gurgly aquatic sound effects are all part of his approach. In fact, if you wanted a time capsule of what a good chunk of 2009 and early 2010 sounded like, Mountain Debris could be it.That might sound like a dig, but it's not. Shields is part of a crowded pack of artists working in this style-- think also Atlas Sound and Banjo or Freakout-- his take is punchier than the others, yet still heavy on mood and atmosphere. With material thus far scattered on limited-run releases (a self-titled EP arrived last summer), Mountain Debris collects that earlier work alongside some newer tracks and functions as a handy guide on what the band does well and where it could stand to improve. The album works its way through a variety of song types in short bursts and hangs together in part because it doesn't linger in one spot for too long. (At 16 tracks, it's still just a little over a half an hour long.) The standard vibe here is a spooky, overcast take on melodic guitar jangle, like C86 stranded out in the woods at night, but Shields and co. take plenty of detours to keep things interesting. Often the best stuff is the simplest, like the warm, encrusted melodies of "Sofia", which serves as a good example of how lo-fi production can be not just a textural effect but a way to add depth and intrigue to a song. (This is important, lo-fi upstarts!) There's a clear sense of loss and longing in this track, and that runs throughout the record-- most conspicuous on grainy shoegaze exercises like "Lavender" and "Silver"....full text |
| Clashmusic |
| I first heard A Grave With No Name by accident. They were on before The xx at a festival this summer and I arrived early. Their name put me off, their appearance (all straggly long hair and loose fitting hippy attire) put me off, even that first time their music failed to really turn me on. It was a little dank and lacklustre; that kind of barely there tinkering that sometimes errs on moth eaten threadbare. The second time I saw them they’d acquired a depth, a maturity, or at least a decent echo machine....full text |
| Dummymag |
| Like many other bands these days, A Grave With No Name have a lot of bases covered; from the bubble gum melodies and angle-grinder guitars of the Jesus and Mary Chain all the way through to the bedroom-floor intimacy of Coco Rosie and Daniel Johnson. While A Grave With No Name’s songs equal the elegance of Billy Corgan’s ‘Siamese Dream’-era compositions and match Black Francis’ early Pixies tracks in their brevity, they have neither Micachu’s alchemical ability to conjure melody from lo-fi clatter, nor the brute ferocity of No Age. But what A Grave With No Name do establish is a distinctive voice of their own and ‘Mountain Debris’ is an extraordinary album. A Grave With No Name are a London-based three piece led by chief vocalist and songwriter, Alex Shields. ‘Mountain Debris’ – released on No Pain in Pop, home to like-minded iconoclasts Nite Jewel, Deep Shit and Banjo or Freakout – collates unreleased material alongside tracks that have been available previously on limited-edition vinyl. The result is a surprisingly cohesive record. Songs are connected by short, ambient interludes and the sound of falling water becomes a motif that recurs at various points during the album, a bucolic counterpoint to tracks that could otherwise sound almost claustrophobically homemade....full text |
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