Four-song EP from San Diego’s Griever (once Lewd Acts), who double down on the two-song single they released earlier this year. There’s actually more than one Griever out there, but this is the only one that deserves your attention, believe me, and even if you don’t think so, they’ll go ahead and take it from you anyway. Griever comes to the race with a hardcore gait but their strength actually lay in their ability to pace themselves with a sludgy, down-tuned melody, which means they’ll remind you more of Torche than they will Trap Them, but they could flank either of ‘em on the podium at the end of the day. “The Forgetter” and “Black Vinyl Clouds” are the two aggressively incessant songs here, loaded with groovy, volatile riffs, while “Stag Hymn” and “Home Again, Alone Again” showcase a gloomier Griever with a post-rock vibe. While heavy and loud, Griever keep you guessing, and that makes Inferior somewhat superior.
San Diego’s Dirty Sweet belong to an emerging group of rock n’ roll revolutionaries, gentlemen prospectors clad in suspenders and dirty boots, returning home from the Gold Rush where they successfully panned along the banks of the country blues river for brilliant Southern rock nuggets. Along with contemporaries The Parlor Mob, Priestbird, The Main Street Gospel, Weird Owl, and (on a popular scale) Kings of Leon, they take the same trail blazed by The Rolling Stones, Cactus, The Allman Brothers, and The Black Crowes to usher in a new wave of forty-niner dust n’ soul known simply as mustache rock. American Spiritual, Dirty Sweet’s second album, is a slice of electric Americana with its fuzzy sights set squarely on the life and times of a country on the tipping point. They’ve even ratcheted up the tension this time around; where the songs on their first album, Of Monarchs and Beggars, were more homely and laid back, the songs on American Spiritual are more aggressive and boss, and come at you like an outlaw posse at high noon (dig “Get Up, Get Out,” “Please Beware,” “Kill or Be Killed,” and “Crimson Cavalry” for the loudest examples). However, this album isn’t without its laid back moments, and songs like “Star-Spangled Glamour,” “An Empty Road,” and “You Don’t Try” are prime examples of Dirty Sweet’s mastery of the front porch, sun-drenched ballad, while the title track is a Gothic gospel number that will haunt you just right. Smile a toothless grin, my friends, because mustache rock lives.
Check out the video for “Marionette” from American Spiritual!
Hell, why stop there? Check out the video for “You’ve Been Warned” from American Spiritual as well!
Griever
Dirty Sweet