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Graves Brothers Deluxe

San Malo

(Green Cookie)

The Graves Brothers Deluxe, out of San Francisco, is maybe the best band you never heard of, a bass-heavy, Beefheart-bent trio, reared on a steady diet of punk rock, New Orleans funk and late night jazz. Stoo Odom, a veteran of Thin White Rope and Subarachnoid Space, leads from the low-end, thumping hallucinatory, harried bass grooves while whispering sinisterly overtop. He's supported by Noel Redding's old touring band, long-time compatriots Willie the Mailman on guitar and sax, and Marco Villalobos on drums.

San Malo is the Graves Brothers' first album since Hurricane Katrina turned Odom's life upside down, and, as such, is darker, bleaker, more devastating (and devasted) in its black-hearted humor. A New Orleans native, Odom spent days searching for his mother and elderly stepfather after the storm. His stepfather had been in the hospital for spinal surgery when Katrina hit and was eventually evacuated to Houston... though it was some time before anyone told Odom about it. The storm turns up periodically throughout the album, both as a metaphor (usually for love) and as its own massively destructive real-world self. It's evident in the slinky, skanky, krautishly driving "Five Foot Category Five," in a heart "never built to code" in "My Heart Burned Down" and in a general aura of grin-and-bear-it survival. "I'm fine," Odom leers repeatedly, though in the song of the same name, he is tethered to battered IV lines and anything but fine.

All this makes San Malo sound like a downer, but, in fact, it is manically entertaining. The bass and drums lock into distended, body-moving grooves. The guitar sets off little firestorms of pedal-effected mayhem. The lyrics curl up into smoke-clouds of surreal, elliptical imagery. It's a party fueled by world's last functioning generator, a little giddy, a little desperate and ultimately doomed...but that doesn't make it any less enjoyable while it lasts. #San Malo# is certainly brutal and unsparing, but also, in a weird way, extremely fun - a difficult balance, but one worth striking.

DOWNLOAD: "San Malo National Anthem", "Five Foot Category Five", "I'm Fine" JENNIFER KELLY

Eine wilde Mischung aus Psychdelic, Psycho, Rock, Surf und Konzept liegt dem Album zugrunde. Vor allem gibt es sogar eine Story, die die Songs nacherzählen, sie berichten von der versunkenen Piratenstadt San Malo.

Dabei sind die Geschichten der Songs sehr schräg, könnten manchmal ein wenig mehr zurücktreten hinter dem Sound. Am besten sind die zurückgehaltenen Gitarren, die auf einen Einsatz warten, zögern und sich dann langsam in den Vordergrund spielen und mit ihrem Sound manchmal unberechtigterweise hinter dem Gesang zurückbleiben.

Und dann sind da die Tracks, wo die Gitarren sich fast wie THE SURFARIS anhören, und dann wieder so freie Improvisationen, dass man an Noise erinnert wird. Eigentlich müsste man es unter Psychedlic-Surf einordnen, wenn es die Kategorie geben würde.

Ein cooles Fusion-Album der skizzierten Genres, für jeden Geschmack ist etwas dabei und zu einem neuen Süppchen zusammengebrutzelt. Manchem mag es vielleicht ein wenig zu viel an Zutaten sein, aber man kann es gut anhören!

The Graves Brothers Deluxe - San Malo (gravesbrothers.com)

Not only is “San Malo” inventive, but it’s also an enjoyable throwback to bands like Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Southern Culture on the Skids, or any of those cool-as-fuck, demi-punk garagey bands. You know what I mean, like the bands who’s vinyl albums you have a hard time trying to get rid of, because you know they’ll never come up with a band as eclectic as they are.

Enthusiasm and melody are certainly not a problem here. Songs like “I’m Fine,” “Vulture Sing,” or “Noisy King of Nothing” are low-brow, compressed with high energy, and have a polite blowtorch vocals that could boil over at any minute.
When the tempo slows down on numbers like “Vulture Sing,” or “My Heart Burned Down Today,” they draw you in like a hypnotist.- Tantalizing, taunt, and tight.

The Graves Brothers Deluxe’s pull out all the stops for the neo-psychedelic, spiderwebed sound of “Noisy Kind of Nothing.” A running bass line (just about every song here), is dominate, but not forceful, and is well supported by a pulsating drum kit, marked by cymbal rolls and floor tom flourishes.
Playing with punky venom, but without pop slickness, the band’s goth-horror edge offers doses of humor, and tongue-in-cheek-truths.

Bands like The Graves Brothers Deluxe are sometimes viewed as a novelty act, but they easily avoid such trappings by remaining uniquely cool. “Song for Mating Mailmen” squashes any thought of pigeon-holing this band. Creative and fun, it’s time to turn off the TV, unplug the video games, and tune into something unique and original!

Schwindy's indie music spotlight: Graves Brothers Deluxe (4 of 5 stars)

Let's start this off with a little quiz. Choose the best answer. You know you are an indie music artist when:

a. You play a gig for a dozen or fewer people.
b. You sell your merchandise from the back of a van.
c. You end up on a Greek record label.

OK, I don't know exactly how Graves Brothers Deluxe ended up on Green Cookie Records from Thessaloniki, Greece. However, it's not surprising to me that the band couldn't find a label in the US. This is a band that plays the antithesis of 3-minute pop songs. San Malo is a collection of songs that includes a lot of heavily distorted, hypnotic guitar, and skronking saxophone. Oh, and lyrics that sound like they should be recited by some beat poet smoking a French cigarette and topping off an all-black outfit with a black beret. Either that or Captain Beefheart. A couple examples of the sort of far-out beat feel are "Splinters" and especially the last song on the album, "Song for Mating Mailmen." Yes, someone wrote a song for mating mailmen. (It's about time.) And yes, it's easy to imagine this song being the backdrop for someone's poetry reading.

But that isn't even the song I would classify as the most unusual on the album. That designation belongs to "Papio Papio (the Swamp Ape Again)." This song has tremendous energy. And tremendous discord. This is not the sort of song you play for people who enjoy the Grammys. Well, it is if you want to chase that person away. Trust me, I don't mean that in a negative way. I mean, quite simply that this song is the perfect antithesis of all things Grammy and pop.

I have never seen your music collection, but I think it is fair to assume that you don't have many albums like this in your collection. According to the one-sheet, this is a "post-Katrina retelling of St. Malo, Louisiana, a swamp village founded in 1763 by Filipino deserters of Spanish galleons." All I can say is that if this is the soundtrack of a village, it must be one really unusual place. WARNING: This album will take some getting used to. It's not one that you can sit down with and immediately start singing along. But if you ask me, it's this sort of album that makes music worth exploring. The musical world would be pretty dull if every band played easily digestible pop songs. Graves Brothers Deluxe most certainly does not. If you are looking for something different, and a little challenging, give this album a try. I think you'll find it's worth the challenge.