Red Light

Grails is evocative, sinuous and unpredictable -- like all great music should be. So, it stands to reason that nearly everything written about the instrumental band's music expounds on how much it reminds listeners of particular experiences, sights, moods, dreams... People react emotionally to the Portland, OR quintet's powerfully evocative songs because they compel us to fill the gap between music and language. To quote one 20th Century sage, "instrumental music is Total Music." There’s no voice to quaintly tell us how we should feel, only the emotive musical force moving us to understand and empathize.

The anxious tension, extreme dynamics and urgent tone of Grails' second album Red Light seems to briefly glance back upon the rather lush and even-keeled feel of its debut The Burden of Hope (often compared to Godspeed You Black Emperor, Dirty Three). ..and then torches the path it has traveled.