Short Reviews [TheGrapes - 2019 - "The Grapes"]

I think it is probably best if I let the band introduce themselves. “TheGrapes is an ambient-progressive band from the Milky Way Galaxy writing tunes of love, pain, conscience, distance, death, etc. The band has started to record and share demos since September 2018. We self-released a demo album called ‘The Grapes’ in order to introduce the band to the world in July 2019. We are: Aria - songwriter, composer, guitarist, Melody-songwriter, lyricist, bassist, artworks.” I still don’t know why, but these guys remind me so much of Gridfailure but from a pure musical sense nothing could be further from the truth. I think it is because when I am playing this on headphones nothing else matters and the real world becomes somewhat transient. During the rather strange times we currently live in I am still going into an office as I work at an essential business. But there are only ever two other people there these days and I am playing music on headphones. I discovered that this is a poor album to be playing in the background as what I am listening to is more important than what I am supposed to be doing! For the most part this is gently picked acoustic guitar, with a few chords here and there, with plenty of reverb. That’s it, nothing more, yet the sheer beauty and delicacy demands far more attention than one can imagine. In some ways it reminds me of my youth when for a while I fancied myself as a songwriter and instead of practicing the sheet music I was supposed to, I instead created patterns on the piano using both the sustain and soft pedals to create a world which normally only existed for me when I played “Moonlight Sonata”. This is like that, often repetitive, never moving quickly, but the web it builds it majestic and incredibly strong. The band have made this demo available on Bandcamp, and while I don’t know if the full album to follow is similar to this or not, on its own this simple yet gorgeous ambient acoustic meandering demo is a delight and deserves to be heard.