1. Gray matter - Food For Thought+Take It back Ep
"Kill confusion by killing options burn no bridges to stay warm."
This album is so so so fucking amazing, it is close to being the perfect piece of art, enjoyable, inspiring,passionate,uncompromising and beautiful.
Even the cover art is mind blowing, 4 scary looking dudes in the middle of a brillantly drawn forest.
I can distinctly remember the first time i heard Gray Matter, it was on Ali Boulala and Geoff Rowleys Parts in "Sorry" a skate movie by Flip skateboards, it had a awesome soundtrack with the stooges and velvet underground plus many other amazing bands.
I will credit that movie for getting me into punk rock and out of shitty gangster rap, But it was those 2 songs that really got my attention.
The songs were "burn no bridges" and a cover of The Beatles "i am the walrus" no music had made me feel the way this did it was like i could do anything, i remember going skating that day and getting so wrecked trying to do stuff i would never have tried before, But this scary music made me feel fucking bullet-proof.
Honestly nothing has changed, if i am having a shitty day or even a good one this is my go-to album.
Now enough about me time to talk about the actuall music, this was a mid 80s release on the legendary Dischord records, home to minor threat,government issue and about a zillion other amazing harDCore bands.
From this you obviously would get the idea they came out of the 80s DC hardcore scene, home to inspirational bands such as Bad Brains,Fugazi,Bikini Kill and Iron Cross(3 members of gray matter actually played in this band).
This being said they really dont sound like the other bands they came up around,
they are not as straight forward hardcore as bands like Minor Threat or Teen Idles,they are not as funky or rhythmic as the late era "emo-core" bands like rites of spring or embrace.
The sound on this album is totally unique, i am yet to hear anything like it aggressive without being unlistenable melodic without sounding to poppy and simple but still musically impressive.
The album opens with "retrospect" the start of this song lulls you into thinking this might just be another 80s hardcore album, and then the amazing vocal melody comes in.
it really shows to you what to expect throughout the album lyrics about being confused and growing up, they are a repeated theme throughout the album but its not overused at all.
Now i could go through the whole album track by track i enjoy writing about this band that much but i think that would make this totally unreadable so ill only talk about one more track
"crisis and compromise" its my next favourite track on the album, its about a friend changing in front of your eyes and not being able to do anything about it, im sure everyone has experienced this at least once.
"Cause things aren’t always how they appear
And he’s not the same person he was last year"
i could fill a whole blog just with lyrics from this band they are that good, keep in mind that the members of Gray Matter were still in fucking HIGH SCHOOL!! when they made this album
and it puts every fucking major rock band in the history of music to shame.
they broke up after releasing the take it back EP and they were put together in a reissue witch is the album i first got my hands on and it was life changing. they got back together in the 90s and made another album but it just wasn't the same.
in the end i feel like everybody in the world should hear this album at least once.
No comments:
Post a Comment