Gravanzia- Doom to the doom Men
(Self Released)
From Aural Innovations #38 (Jan 2008)
Gravanzia is a rather weird rock group from London. This quartet dresses themselves
in colourful capes and mediates their strange, esoteric message through their
very original, psychedelic music. For instrumentation, they use at least guitars,
bass, drums, organ, spacey synthesizers and electronics. Doom to the Doom Men
is apparently their second official album and it is an enchanting, magical but
a bit scary affair. The band's music is quite hard to describe, but it has at
least a tiny bit of Hawkwind and Gong, some Tuxedomoon and Webcore and Gothic
overtones. From time to time it's also pretty experimental and progressive.
The vocals are often closer to invocations or chants, and if this wasn't partly
funny, I'd be a bit scared for sure...
This ten-tracker had to be played a few times until it really reached me, but
it's been a highly spellbinding and trippy experience ever since. Sometimes
the music rocks pretty hard (for example on tracks ”Get Down Low!”
and ”What We Deserve”). There are also free-floating, peaceful,
spacey and laid-back tracks like the mystical ”Ode to J.C.” and
the airy ”Deep Is the Glove”. The rather strange ”Discordheed”
has sequences running through it all the time. ”Curious Little Tongue”
and ”Sic Transit” are short, experimental ambient pieces. The excellent,
repetative ”Beast Your Mind” has some nice harmonic vocals and tons
of synthesizers. The album's master piece is the close to ten-minute-long title
track, that is a really deep trip into the occult. There are a lot of samples
and spacey sound effects, and the overall feel of the album is very hallucinatory
and hypnotic. This just might take you for a journey into other dimensions,
but if you're prepared for it and not too scared I'd advise you to take part
in this wild and mysterious worship to the Ancient Ones.
Check the band's web site at: http://www.gravanzia.com
Reviewed by Santtu Laakso