The Grebes

The very crux of The Grebes is built to bait the sensibilities of RSTB. The band, featuring members of longtime RSTB faves The Woolen Men, was born out of a DJ night that dug into downer ‘60s psych; the kind that wraps jangled guitars in minor keys and curdled whims. The band’s laundry list of influences rifles through The Bachs, The Dovers, The Contents Are, and The Index, among others. The band uses the corroded coattails of the paisley years as a jumping off point, but there’s more than a few pangs of punk gnawing at the record as well. The Nuggets are dubbed and re-dubbed until they land in the hands of warehouse-worn Northwest ‘90s Flexi freaks and Midwest Hüsker-hounded demo merchants. It’s the kind of perfect storm of a record that’s bound to haunt crate-dusted diggers some years from now.

At the heart of the record is a jangled engine, tearing through the tape with a resounding ring of guitars. It’s paired with the ragged, restless drumming of Kyle Raquipiso, adding a fevered beat that keeps the record just this side of psychosis. It plays like a half-remembered dream, an imagined echo of the past that feels so real the songs have to have been AM transmissions that were absorbed from an alternate reality. The Grebes clang and snarl, sneer and seethe. They fishhook riffs and lob them at the speakers still fresh and flailing. Crack the kaleidoscope, kick the vacuum tubes until they scream and strap in for The Grebes.

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