Published on Mar 10, 1999
One could ask this question about music these days: With so much
mixing of different bands’ styles, is any original music still
being created today?
Without a second’s hesitation, I’d answer “yes” – but I’d also
add that not all merges of styles and flavors mean that creative
expression is sacrificed. Take Australia’s Grinspoon, for example.
Their American debut effort
Guide To Better Living takes the best parts of bands like
Tool and Korn, but builds on those blocks to make a sound all their
own.
The band – Phil Jamieson, Pat Davern, Joe Hansen and Kristian
Hopes – kind of sound like Silverchair on a three-day bender. Their
mixture of angst and anger, sprinkled on beds of rock with a
serious crunch to it (all the time staying melodic) is surprisingly
refreshing. With a name like Grinspoon, you almost don’t know what
to expect – and that’s the whole beauty of the surprise.
Sure, there are a few moments that highlight ideas that leave
you scratching your head, wondering what the hell that meant (“Dead
Cat X 3”), but for the most part, the energy and the musicianship
behind the tunes on
Guide To Better Living kicks things into overdrive. Tracks
like “PostEnebriatedAnxiety,” “Railrider,” “NBT” and “Black Friday”
all show Grinspoon as a band to be seriously dealt with in the very
near future.
But what about the other band references I made earlier, you may
be asking? Grinspoon takes the vocal delivery of Korn (without the
hip-hop style that band has made famous) and the musical Texas
two-step of Tool and grinds them together into a funky alternative
beat that has yet to be equalled in the music industry. Copy-cat
syndrome? Nope, just a good combination of influences.
There is still some room to grow musically for Grinspoon, but
their strengths are what are well in the forefront on
Guide To Better Living – something many other new bands fail
to achieve. If this album is any indication of what this four-piece
is capable of, then you can guarantee that we’ll be hearing a lot
more from them – and about them – very soon.