Life Is Much Stranger" is the mind-blowing 4th studio album from NYC heavy rock trio The Golden Grass and it stands tall and wild, towering above their entire previous discography! It is a massive and epic sonic adventure, a post-modern collage of rock n roll ideology, swelling and bursting with hard, heavy and progressive musical energies...the past is inside the present...and The Golden Grass are moving the sound FORWARD!
It has always been the goal of the group to connect the dots between their influences, to reconcile disparate vintage ideas that perhaps never coexisted in their original place and time! To give life to a NEW artistic vision that synergizes them together like a warm blanket, both familiarly ancient and cosmically NOW! And with all of that sonic information of the past, not to mention a healthy dose of great taste, The Golden Grass concoct their magick brew and are able to conceptualize and materialize music in such a particular way that it screams timelessly from long ago, but could only happen IN THIS VERY MOMENT! Life IS much stranger after all….
This album was conceived over the past several years, through chaos and confusion, during a global pandemic that forced the band to work in new/unconventional ways they had never before imagined. The music on this album has never seen an audience. These songs have never been performed. And in fact, the recording of the album was the first time the members of the group even understood what their new creations sounded like! The initial writing sessions began in the summer of 2019, but were obviously halted in early 2020 due to the situation. Over the next two years, the band did their best to move forward with the process but rehearsals were infrequent, sickness and health threats always barking at the door, and a constant unknown of what was to come; was there any future for their art at all?...But slowly and disjointedly, they assembled their musical ideas into 7 rough pieces that would soon comprise “Life Is Much Stranger”.
From Sept-Oct of 2022, the group worked with a team of engineers across three studios in NYC, recording and mixing the tracks, sculpting their rough song-forms into polished, yet quite surreal, glistening gems! And when they emerged with a finished product, the bizarre and strange events of the previous 3 years all melted into a perfect picture, a complete totality, crystal clear, wholly avant-garde and spellbinding!
“Life Is Much Stranger” is an amalgamation of hard rock boogie, jazzy progressive rock, psychedelic exploration and incendiary proto-metal all bursting with soulful harmony-layered vocals, masterful instrumental technicality and an otherworldly creative ambition…and it sounds FUCKING GREAT!
Recommended for fans of DUST, CAPTAIN BEYOND, THE PRETTY THINGS, JO JO GUNNE, TRAFFIC, DEMIAN, HIGHWAY ROBBERY, T2, ICECROSS and HARD STUFF!
credits
released April 7, 2023
*PRODUCED BY ADAM KRINEY
*BASIC TRACKS RECORDED SEPT 2-5 2022 AT URBAN SPACEMAN, BROOKLYN/NY BY ANDREA ZAVAREEI, ADAM KRINEY & LOU DEROSE
*ADDTIONAL TRACKS RECORDED SEPT 7-25 2022 AT IFTK MOBILE STUDIO, BROOKLYN/NY BY ADAM KRINEY
*MIXED SEPT 30-OCT 3 2022 AT STUDIO G, BROOKLYN/NY BY JEFF BERNER
*MASTERED OCT 2022 AT HEADLESS BUDDHA, OAKLAND/CA BY MYLES BOISEN
*ALBUM ARTWORK BY BRANCA STUDIO
*PHOTOGRAPHY BY DANTE TORRIERI
supported by 35 fans who also own “THE GOLDEN GRASS - Life Is Much Stranger”
Recently discovered this band. IF their back catalogue, is as great as this I'll be adding them to my collection.
To my ears they sound like someone has blended early black sabbath with led zepplin's bluesier albums. A much welcome trip to the 70s hard blues heavy metal. welshwizzardd
supported by 35 fans who also own “THE GOLDEN GRASS - Life Is Much Stranger”
The flac version of this sounds great in my truck... not a crunch, clip or boom to be heard. That, in itself, gets this major points.
This is a lovely combination of early Floyd, U2 and a few San Francisco bands from the '60s with a heavy dose of Helmet tossed in. It's definitely best of breed when it comes to modern psych stuff. Even without a Hammond B3, it gets an easy A+... rick-taylor
Italian stoner powerhouse Tenebra has the heft of Sabbath and the hooks of Saint Vitus in their powerfully imposing tunes. Bandcamp New & Notable May 8, 2022
A stoner-rock opera with dystopian themes, the Italian band's third LP fuses apocalyptic fury with psychedelic splendor. Bandcamp New & Notable Nov 29, 2023
supported by 31 fans who also own “THE GOLDEN GRASS - Life Is Much Stranger”
If you like a mix of NWOBHM and classic Doom, you should take purchase this disc by very quickly!! Classic Doom in a 70s guise with cool breaks and NWOBHM melodies. I think Pentagram, Magic Circle or Pagan Altar fit here perfectly as comparison. Stephan