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 Review archive:  # a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

Gridfailure & Rack - The Sun Exploded [Self Release - 2021]

Experimental project Gridfailure, (aka  New Yorker David Brenner), is a decidedly productive venture- since forming in 2016 it has twenty-eight releases to it's name. Collaborative  works occupy a special niche in the projects back catalogue. The latest album The Sun Exploded, is another example of this, as it was co-produced by harsh-noise project Rack( aka Jon Paris). Although Rack has been inactive for over a decade, David Brenner used previously unreleased and archived material from the project, adding to them to his own work. The album was put together in 2019 and now, in early 2021, it became available digitally for listening and ordering from the Grindfailure’s bandcamp.

David Brenner designs his own album covers, and The Sun Exploded is no exception. It features a fragment of a mesh fence with barbed wire, behind which is something resembling an electric power station, as well as the silhouettes of a street lamp and lifeless trees. The cover is set in a rather rough style collage in dirty red, orange and black colours. At the top of the cover are the names of the projects, written in orange machine font, which contains Cyrillic letters replacing some of the Latin ones. At the very bottom of the cover is the title albums set-out in yellow Copper font. I've seen a few Gridfailure album covers now,  and I am not the biggest fan of this approach to album art, however, I must admit that David has his own easily recognizable style. Unfortunately, I cannot say that the cover is uniquely suited to the music content of the album. Nevertheless, it puts the listener in a certain frame of mind..
 
The album is one hour and twelve minutes long, consisting of four rather lengthy tracks, which, in their essence, are one composition, since they smoothly flow from one to another. The track titles are simple named - "The Sun Exploded: I", "The Sun Exploded: II", "The Sun Exploded: III" and, which rather surprised me, again "The Sun Exploded: III". Perhaps this was Brenner’s intention. Or perhaps it’s a mistake.
 
The album starts with a  deep, low and muddy yet atmospheric drone- this is Death Industrial edged, and features a selection of industrial sound recordings. As the composition develops (I remind you that despite the track division, the album is one composition), the sound changes many times, acquires various effects, noises, heavily distorted vocals and elements of various field recordings. But the main intrigue of the album is that near its middle, the sound becomes closer to Noise-rock. We find leisurely monotonous drums and low dirty bass guitar, playing looped riffs reminiscent of both Stoner Doom and Kraut Rock- which is framed by a variety of sound and noise effects. During the album, these rhythmic parts change several times, appearing from the wall of effects, then again disappearing into it.

I’ve reviewed several previous Gridfailure albums, noting the over-saturation of the sound. This time the same thing occurs. The overall sound of the album is a dense multi-layered stream of various effects, noises, drones and much more, sounding simultaneous and from everywhere. Sometimes I wanted to say - “Stop! It's too much!". These moments of excessive sonic saturation turned some parts of the album into a mess, which, frankly, was saved only by the presence of rhythmic drums and guitar. Perhaps these very rock parts mixed with effects are the main advantage of the album and give it a certain novelty. This musical technique was already tested several times- think Boris and Merzbow, or Melvins and Lustmord. The Sun Exploded has the same effect, but it sounds more like a mix of Acid Mother Temple, Esoteric and Skullflower. Don't forget that The Sun Exploded is a collaboration album. To be honest, I am not familiar with the work of Rack and cannot judge the creative contribution of this project to the album, so I can judge  Gridfailure.
 
I have no place to advise an artist to change his approach to sound, however, I would like David to be  less generous in his sound-scaping and slightly lower the saturation. This would give a more precise form to the composition. However, while listening to the album, I had no desire to turn it off and seventy-two and a half minutes went by pretty quickly. I'm not a huge Gridfailure fan and don't follow the project that closely. However, of all the albums of I have heard thus far The Sun Exploded is the most rewarding

Rating: 4 out of 5Rating: 4 out of 5Rating: 4 out of 5Rating: 4 out of 5Rating: 4 out of 5

Sergey Pakhomov
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