|
|
|
Chris Grenier resides in coastal New Hampshire and has his thumb in several music-oriented pies, including journalism, recording engineering, and, with Northern, songwriting. Grenier enlisted his brother John on drums and a handful of guests on a variety of instruments like electric piano, organ, melodica, vibraphone, strings, and pedal steel. This variety of sounds is welcome because the M.O. stays the same throughout the length of this debut album: spare, quiet and slow are the order of the day. The sparseness of the music leaves plenty of room for Grenier's narrative lyrics, with recurring themes of memory, location, and travel (and a prominent, albeit questionably-pronounced, name-drop of Yo La Tengo on one track). The muttered vocals have a world-weary quality similar to Matt Kadane's in Bedhead. It's a well-crafted album, and I get the sense that Grenier is a serious-minded fellow. The overall effect is like looking through an album of someone else's snapshots; you could probably gauge your potential interest in this disc based on your relative interest in that activity. (mike.04.06)
rating
related links