Grumblewood are a progressive folk-rock quartet from Wellington, New Zealand. Their debut album ‘Stories of Strangers’ features eight tales of fortune, fable, daring and demise, and explores the lyricism, rhythms, and role of folk music, mixing it up with a bit of jazz, a bit of baroque, and a lot of rock.
The band has taken the very unusual and artistic step of recording, mixing and mastering entirely in analogue and the result is a warm and charming album that appears born of the golden era of progressive music.
“The album sounds like it was made in the early 1970s. The songwriting and musicianship is fantastically engaging.” – Robin Armstrong, Cosmograf/Gravity Dream
The title track pounds in, with a distinctly Gojira vibe. Any fans of that band will surely love this track, and it is very impressive! This song distinctly reminds me of the myth of Ranginui and Pa-patūānuku (Rangi, the Sky Father, and Papa, the Earth Mother), but whether this is the intent of the band, I am not sure. The chugging continues on Tūrehu (a strange, mythical, pale-skinned race of magical beings – fairy folk, if you will), but in an almost stoner groove, and with a glorious choral finale. The way the band do not stick to one style is one of the greatest aspects of this album, with a fresh sound around every corner. The final sparse notes of Tūrehu are beautiful in their simplicity.Read the full review by Nick Hudson at theprogressiveaspect.net
The first thing to state is that this is a real slow-burner of a listen. Few will be too impressed on a first or even a third listen. The melodies take a while to ease into the sub-conscious. But be patient. The best music generally has these attributes. Once it does sink in, there are some serious earworm tracks here that you will keep coming back to.Read the full review by Andy Read at dprp.net
Musically I am reminded of two other debut albums, from Dutch band A Liquid Landscape and American one-hit wonders The Addiction Dream. The more quirky moments and certain vocal phrasings are reminiscent of my favourite band from Sheffield, InFictions (the opening of Morning Warning).
It’s an exceptionally intricate album, comprised of the kind of mercurial progressive rock which reminds us of the recently mentioned on the blog Ghostbound and other acts like Anathema, Porcupine Tree and more. During its runtime, Even As the Light Grows focuses on a kind of dreamy melancholia that’s hard to parse, evoking both a sort of depression and a sense of wonder and introspective speculation. While doing so, it features guitars, bass, drums and vocals but also plenty of brass and string instruments. Beyond instrumentation, its themes are often gentle and expansive like post-rock but also contain blastbeats and harsher, more abrasive segments.Read the full review by Eden Kupermintz at heavyblogisheavy.com
Sonically following on in a similar fashion to the largely instrumental "zero-one", the band has nonetheless reintroduced more of a focus on vocal-led melodies, with all three members contributing. The songwriting again journeys between quiet, melodic mood-pieces to longer, dynamic passages that build to a crashing 'wall of sound' crescendo.Media/Samples
