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Brand new press for "San Malo!"
"the graves brothers combine near-suicidal excess with hairpin-turn discipline to create
the most confounding and commanding rock album of the year."
– John Shelton ivany ANTIMUSIC: Graves Brothers Deluxe - San Malo
by Gary Schwind 
I first encountered
Graves Brothers Deluxe a couple years ago on a split with Boxcar Satan, so I kind of knew what I was getting when the new
album San Malo arrived. That being said, the band is not any easier to classify than it was at first. I know this
much. If you are looking for 3-minute pop nuggets, keep looking.The guitar on this album is rather hypnotic, particularly in the first couple tracks. Frankly,
if you can think of a better word for the guitar on "I'm Fine," I'd love to hear it. When this song is playing,
it doesn't feel so much like you are listening to it, but rather that it is washing over you. The distorted guitar and the
uptempo drums seem to surround you. The band follows that with "Splinters," one of a couple songs that features
some skronking saxophone. Maybe it's the saxophone, and maybe it's the lyrics, or quite possibly, it's the utter chaos,
but something about this song feels a bit like beat poetry. Performed by Captain Beefheart. An even better example of that
beat poetry feel is "Song for Mating Mailmen." (And you thought no one would ever write a song for that particular
group of people.) It is real easy to imagine some guy in a beret with a French cigarette hanging from his lips reciting a
poem while this song plays in the background. Perhaps there is no better example of the difficult to describe quality than
"Papio Papio (the Swamp Ape Again)." This is just a song with all-out blazing energy and a fair amount of discord.
I doubt you have too many songs like this one on your iPod. The thing about this band and this album is that as you go through it, you realize you're
hearing something completely different. You'll probably also realize that you won't really know how to explain this album
to your friends. But let's face it, that's one of the great things about music: passing along music that is truly different
and perhaps a little challenging to listen to. I mean, if everyone sounded like a Grammy winner (that is to say, bland and
safe), music wouldn't be worth exploring. Suffice it to say that if you explore music that is not easily pigeonholed or
compared, this is a band and an album that you'll want to check out.
JERSEYBEAT: 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!
BABYSUE/ LMNOP:
Graves Brothers Deluxe - San Malo (Greek import
CD, Green Cookie, Progressive)
So many bands either go for a total pop/rock approach...or experimental music so weird that
it alienates most listeners. The guys in Graves Brothers Deluxe manage to tread on the fine line that separates
both worlds. The band has been very busy over the past few years recording their own music and working with a wild array of
different artists in all kinds of different mediums. San Malo is right up there with the Brothers' best recordings.
Some of these tracks are moody distorted pop/rock...while others feature more abstract sounds and ideas. Interestingly, the
album is being released on the Greek Green Cookie label. Strange how many cool credible American bands find far more support
in other countries (?). Ten groovy cuts here that glide all over the audio map. Our favorite tracks include "I'm Fine,"
"My Heart Burned Down Today," "The Ballad of San Malo," and "Noisy Kind of Nothing." Another
killer release from one of the true American classic underground bands. TOP PICK.
ORANGE COUNTY MUSIC EXAMINER:
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.
PIRATE CAT RADIO: THE GRAVES BROTHERS DELUXE
/ San Malo CD / Green Cookie Records / 2009 Brilliant bad-attitude rock expertly produced by L.A. legends Geza X and Paul Roessler. World-weary
in a totally pissed-off way that’s also very funny, with some of the tastiest slide guitar I’ve heard in years.
BONUS: Features PCR ace DJ STOO ODUM on stringed instruments, vocals, and way-offbeat songwriting. SOUNDS LIKE:
RADIOHEAD, NOMEANSNO,
GUN CLUB SUGGESTED
TRACKS:
1 “San Malo National Anthem” (instrumental goodness)
4 “Five Foot Category Five”
(ambivalence defined)
6 “My Heart Burned Down Today” (catchy and danceable – a hit!) EAR CANDY MAGAZINE:
The Graves Brothers Deluxe, “San Malo” (Green
Cookie Records) Rating: 4
TCB’s
I kept scratching my head on this one. I love
it, no question about it, but I was puzzled at why I was so drawn in. Then it hit me. The stripped down, beat driven arrangements
and haunting lyrics remind me of the late great Mark Sandman and his jazz/experimental work with Morphine. If you can imagine
a musical stew of Morphine, Beck and Wall of Voodoo with a pinch of Gang Of Four and the Sex Pistols thrown in. Now picture
Frank Zappa stirring the pot then you’re about halfway there.
This album is the musical re-telling of
a swamp village in Louisiana founded in 1763 by Filipino deserters of the Spanish galleons. Heady stuff indeed but these guys
not only pull it off, they’ve created an album that the listener can really sink their teeth into for years to come.
This isn’t disposable music that loses its flavor after a few listenings.
“Five
Foot Category Five” has an eerie swamp groove that will have you checking the skies and battening down the hatches.
“My Heart Burned Down Today” sounds a bit like the Sex Pistols “Submission” covered by a young Talking
Heads. “The Ballad Of San Malo” is a mesmerizing personal favorite. Highly recommended stuff.
www.greencookie.gr
THE BIG TAKEOVER:
The
Big Takeover > essays
NARA
DENNING (FEATURING STOO ODOM OF THE GRAVES BROTHERS DELUXE), PART II
by Chris
Stroffolino
16 January 2010
The Graves Brothers Deluxe were one of the first three rock bands I got into when I moved
to the Bay Area, the only one not named after a front-man (in contrast to Kelley Stoltz and fellow Mississippi Exile, Hudson
Bell), and the only one for which I jumped around in an Apesuit, on our package shows for the now defunct Good Forks record
label (before my accident).
Always
one of the most danceable of the Bay Area bands, the band’s first release in 5 years, SAN MALO, and their first on Greece’s GREEN COOKIErecords (an implicit commentary
on the paucity of quality/viable Bay Area independent labels), has even tighter grooves, from the rhythm section of Marco
Villalobos and Stoo Odom, while stepping their “noise rock” jams up a notch; the glorious melodic
cacophony of Willie The Mailman’s (ex-Residents ) sinuous and jagged guitar/saxophone lines recall Albert Ayler, as
“backed” by the rhythm section of The Minutemen, if not Firehose). Perhaps it’s a result of 5 years of touring
since 2005’s FILTER FEEDERS, or their work on the MAHIKARI album (Birdman 2008),
with Japanese noise-rock legends SEIICHI YAMOMOTO and MAKOTO KAWABATA, but many of the tracks on SAN MALO have a much more expansive
instrumentalization, while the words—-never a central aspect to GBD—-take even more of a
backseat. Perhaps because GBD’s singer is first and foremost its bassist, the words are usually only important insofar
as they call attention, often playfully, to the inadequacy of words, as on FILTER FEEDER’s “…And
The Conversation Turned To Sex” or SAN MALO’s “Noisy Kind Of Nothing.”
At the same time, San Malo is the most melodic,
and tuneful LP in the GBD’s catalogue—-not that melody was ever that important for GBD. But, with the addition of
Allison Lovejoy on keyboards, many of the new GBDcompositions are much more “college radio”
friendly, without sacrificing anything about what makes them such an engaging live band. I recently sat down with Stoo Odom
to talk about GBD and
his work with Nara Denning. Here’s some videos.
“It came from the Id,”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PASoNL8_UL4
Interview, with Stoo and Nara http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uA8k5iPiA5U
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