Geordie Greep - The New Sound
Unforgettable chaos. D’you know what I mean?
It’s rare to be out of breath while sitting in place and listening to music. But that is exactly how this album left me. “The New Sound”, the first solo album of former Black Midi singer Geordie Greep, is a crazy, nearly psychedelic rollercoaster of brilliant fast-paced instrumentals, unconventional vocals, intentionally bizarre and sometimes outlandish and explicit lyrical imagery and engaging narratives.
The opener, “Blues”, is a near six-minute ocean of building and breaking tension, built upon utter instrumental and lyrical pandemonium, with no shortage of memorable and positively hilarious lines. This is a great tell for what is to come on the rest of the album. It is also the introduction to the album’s protagonist, a rather grotesque, hollow and lonely man, who spends much of the rest of the record trying to fill this hole in his twisted soul.
An unquestionable highlight is the lead single, “Holy, Holy” - there is no better representation for the album’s enthralling storytelling, sharp below-the-surface social commentary, and wild, busy sound. It is also the place where the aforementioned story fully kicks into gear, with the narrator constructing a staged scenario involving a sex worker to satisfy his desperate yearning for, albeit fleeting, intimacy and approval from others. This narrative is built up, fleshed out and continues through the album, with the narrator descending more and more into misery and desperation as it goes on, concluding in the 12-minute long penultimate track, “The Magician”. Greep remains a charming narrator throughout, allowing for all the absurdity and crudeness to end up being strangely endearing.
The musical aspects are just as brilliant as Greep’s unorthodox, careening vocals and his captivating storytelling. The instrumental work is deeply impressive throughout, with the drums and bass particular standouts. The production is also absolutely stellar. With so much noise being made on the album, it is absolutely critical for each sound to make sense and be refined to the smallest details, for every hit to be as intentional as possible, for all of it to mix together into an enjoyable final product. This balance is incredibly tough to achieve, but Greep and producer Seth Evans pull it off to perfection.
Overall, “The New Sound” is, indeed, something new within the current-day musical landscape. It feels like a singular, unique approach to unhinged, chaotic creative self-expression, building on all of Greep’s previous experience with Black Midi and adding even more charm and flair to it. It’s a brilliant project, very well-constructed and clearly extremely meticulously thought out. It shines from every standpoint, which makes it one of the best albums of the year, and possibly of the 2020s as a whole.
9.4/10