Band:	Grayceon
Album:	Mothers Weavers Vultures
Style:	Progressive metal
Release date:	December 18, 2020
A review by:	RaduP

01. Diablo Wind
02. The Lucky Ones
03. This Bed
04. And Shine On
05. Rock Steady

Of course Grayceon sound like Giant Squid. Two of its members were in Giant Squid.

I've only recently found out about Grayceon, mostly through it having the membership of Jackie Perez Gratz, whose cello has been part of many Agalloch and Neurosis songs, and has been a staple of Giant Squid's sound. So seeing that out of the three members, the drummer Zack Farwell was also in Giant Squid kinda made me think this was either a side project or a continuation of the band. Wrong. Grayceon was actually formed before either of the two joined Giant Squid. And obviously I had some catching up to do, but thankfully Grayceon have only released five albums in their 15 years of existence, and none of them over one hour in length.

Obviously anybody who was a fan of Giant Squid's sound, especially of the way the cello was integrated, should feel at home with Grayceon's sound as well, which has the cello be an even bigger part of the sound (since it's a bigger ratio of a trio than of a quintet). Here, the cello pretty much all but replaces the bass, but also doesn't take the bass' usual backing rhythm approach, rivaling the guitar in how much of the time it leads. Coupled with some slow burning but nonetheless heavy drumming, the sound is undeniably the right type of lumbering. And with the anchor set in metal music, Grayceon go through some hard to define post and progressive territories, a lot of which do step away gently from the metal world.

What sets Grayceon apart is, aside from having a cello, is how well it is integrated and how amazingly the songs flow. Most of the vocals you'd hear on the record are Jackie's somber and melancholic cleans, with the more extreme vocals adding some counterpoint to them at times, and part of it is as a result of Mothers Weavers Vultures being such a lyrically focused albums, coming off the feet of the California Wildfires, humanity's affect on nature and Grayceon's hearth is what continues to make this album unsettling and compelling. The album's ebb and flow make its longer songs feel shorter, but the album as a whole feels even more immersive as a result. Part of that immersion goes not only to how well the songs are written, but also to how well the mixing integrates all the elements into a very organic sound.

Mothers Weavers Vultures may be a bit less on the extreme metal side than their previous records, instead preferring to be in plodding and grandiose territories, but it does what it does so well, with neither the slower droning parts nor the faster heavier parts feeling like they ever negatively impact the album's momentum. And for such a "clean" album, it never loses its rawness.