DOOMSDAYER'S HOLIDAY

Just like the preceding album, "Doomsdayer's Holiday" is a very short album from Grails. If they slammed the best bits from both albums on one CD they might have been close to a masterpiece. As it stands it's another near excellent album.

The opener "Doomsdayer's Holiday" sets the tone with a huge and heavy theme, sounding like a sluggishly paced down-tuned riff from King Crimson's "Red". Tons of reverb and noise blow this into epic proportions. "Reincarnation Blues" revolves around a children-song melody that gets gradually deconstructed to a rough swamp blues. The second half of the track is more ambient. It flows into "The Natural Man" where a nice gentle acoustic tune gradually rises from the quiet.

"Immediate Mate" is more experimental, with some touches of free jazz booming in the distance. Interesting but it makes the album lose some momentum for me. "Predestination Blues" restores the swampy blues pace but it's not their most remarkable composition. The slow and minimal "X-Contaminations" is very moody and atmospheric, but it isn't till the closing "Acid Rain" that the band reconnects with the strong quality of the 3 opening tracks. The guitar melodies and arpeggios remind me a bit of the Cocteau Twins. Nice one.

Overall a good Grails album but given its short length it left me somewhat disappointed. If the best material had combined on a CD together with the preceding "Doomsdayer's Holiday", they would have delivered another excellent package.