Progarchives, the progressive rock ultimate discography
Giant Squid - Monster in the Creek CD (album) cover

MONSTER IN THE CREEK

Giant Squid

 

Experimental/Post Metal

3.98 | 10 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

sean
Prog Reviewer
4 stars I found this band through the re-recorded version of their debut album, Metridium Fields. Hearing that album, I absolutely fell in love with this band. Their music compelled me the way few bands do, with their combination of excellent textures, juxtaposition of soft in heavy within their songs, and awesome storytelling abilities. This band is one that can drag you into the deepest despair with their music, through all the darkest parts of the human mind, but offer you a ray of hope at the end, like a beam of sunlight that occasionally reaches the deepest fathoms of the sea. The lyrics of Giant Squid tend to relate to the sea, and the music is fitting. I was extremely glad to find out that Giant Squid was re-releasing a limited amount of copies of this e.p., since I've been eager to get my hands on everything they've done since acquiring Metridium Fields last summer. This e.p. was released in between recordings of their debut album (they self released a version called Metridium Field and then re-recorded and released Metridium Fields two years later). This features a different line up then the version of Metridium Fields with which I am familiar. keyboards are much more prominent, often featuring an either jazzy or electronic/dance music feel. The drumming is also at times very jazzy. Despite these differences, the core of the band's sound is the same. Songs often build from minimalistic melodies into dirges which have the ability to drag every bit of hope out of the human soul. This album is partially based on the Jersey Shore Shark Attacks of 1916. Monster in the Creek starts of with some dance sounding keyboard passages over soft guitar playing and female vocals and then builds to a very heavy riff with some harsher male vocals. Dead Man's Fog is a consistently soft song. Here the keyboards take the back seat for the most part, and provide some haunting atmospheres. Age of Accountability is probably the jazziest number here, with some jazzy sounding electric piano parts and trade offs between male and female vocals. Towards the end, though, it transforms into something much heavier, and the vocals become harsher to complement the music. Throwing a Donner Party is probably the most consistently heavy number here, with a healthy amount of distorted guitars and harsh vocals, mixed with some electronic keyboards. Dare We Ask the Widow is another good juxtaposition of light and heavy, with the lighter parts being pretty jazzy and the heavier parts pretty doomy. Lester Stillwell is the only instrumental piece on the album, named after a boy who died in the Jersey Shore Shark Attacks. Keys dominate this one, and it sounds as if it could come out of a level on a 1980's video game because of that keyboard sound. It's hard to pick favourites out of those songs, as they're consistently great, though nothing is really what I would consider a masterpiece, though I believe that if any modern band is capable of writing something at masterpiece level, then it's Giant Squid. I highly recommend them to any fan of music because I sincerely believe that this band has something to offer to people of all sorts of tastes.
sean | 4/5 |

MEMBERS LOGIN ZONE

As a registered member (register here if not), you can post rating/reviews (& edit later), comments reviews and submit new albums.

You are not logged, please complete authentication before continuing (use forum credentials).

Forum user
Forum password

Share this GIANT SQUID review

Social review comments () BETA







Review related links

Copyright Prog Archives, All rights reserved. | Legal Notice | Privacy Policy | Advertise | RSS + syndications

Other sites in the MAC network: JazzMusicArchives.com — jazz music reviews and archives | MetalMusicArchives.com — metal music reviews and archives

Donate monthly and keep PA fast-loading and ad-free forever.