Giant Squid: Monster in the Creek (reissue)

A few things to start. First, I really was completely unfamiliar with the band. And as is typical in such cases, my first goal is to contextualize the music; that is, to try and classify it in some fashion. Once I can do that, the context provides me a direction upon which I can begin to assess how well the band is fitting in to that context. For example, if it is death metal, does this band play competent or exciting death metal? Do they play with the genre in interesting ways? And so on. In this case, I found the music unclassifiable, which actually made it all the more interesting. Musically there are elements of prog, metal, post rock and even some folky elements, but this is all sort of unique, helped along by a good screaming vocalist and the electric cello of Jackie Peretz Grace.

In the case of this release, it is actually comprised of the band's original Ep from 2005, but with a number of added features, including a DVD and live and demo versions of some of the compositions on the original EP. The DVD was not available for review, but it includes clips of the record as it was being recorded, interviews with band members, and live video of the band playing in various venues. It is being released as a 6-panel digipack.

The music is outstanding. I would be hard pressed to describe it. But the recording is engineered to give a heavy sense of space and echo to the songs, and the songs vary from slower balladic songs ("Age of Accountability") to Hell raisers such as "Throwing a Donner Party." The latter would not be out of place on any top-notch metal release, while the former could sort of fit into a Bauhaus/ Echo kind of niche. All of which means these folks are not stuck in a single style of music. And one of the great benefits to this disc is to hear some of these songs played as they were originally conceived, as they were recorded, and as they were played live- interesting to see how the dynamics change in each version. I highly recommend this.

Track Listing

1. Monster in the Creek
2. Dead Man's Fog
3. Age of Accountability
4. THROWING A Donner Party
5. Dare we ask the Widow
6. Lester Stillwell
7. Monster in the Creek- Demo Version
8. Throwing a Donner Party- Demo Version
9. Dare we ask the Widow- Demo Version
10. Throwing a Donner Party- Live @ the Boardwalk, Ora
11. Age of Accountability- Live @ Old Ironsides, Sacra
12. Dare we ask the Widow- Live @ Old Ironsides, Sacra

Added: October 22nd 2013
Reviewer: Dana Lawrence
Score:
Related Link: Band Facebook Page
Hits: 2292
Language: english

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