Absolute Grey
Bad Influence

I wanted to write about What Remains, the second album by the unlucky Absolute Grey, a New York band that lived during a period of change in the American underground scene, but I can't find the entire album online and I have the vinyl at home, so I will talk about the iconic song of the album: Bad Influence

It's 1986, the Sonic Youth had just signed with SST and were yet to release EVOL, the whole CBGB's scene had been out for a long time and the American post-punk in its entirety had completely faded. Hardcore Punk was at a crossroads with the Black Flag dissolved, Hüsker Dü, Meat Puppets, and Bad Brains trying to find their way, and Boon of the Minutemen just passed away. Albini with his Big Black would release that bomb of Atomizer in the same year, Squirrel Bait were still mystical, while MacKaye was in limbo between Minor Threat and Fugazi. Flaming Lips and Spacemen 3 would debut exactly in this 1986.

So what was in America in 1986? Why do I consider it a year of rupture? The calm before the storm?

REM was dominating almost unchallenged for the average listener, while The Replacements had just released Tim, underground there was still the trail of the Paisley Underground started by Dream Syndicate and continued by people like Long Ryders, Thin White Rope, and Green On Red. Looking at the English cousins, there were avalanches of New Romantic, but what interests me is seeing the Smiths launched and Psychocandy by the Jesus and Mary Chain still hot, shoegaze and madchester non-existent but with all the cardinal points well defined.

All this beautiful story to insert the Absolute Grey, where do they stand? Considered by critics Jangle Pop / Paisley Underground, but with other peculiarities ranging from Alternative to a certain psychedelia, in short, they are not at all trivial. The guitars have no walls of feedback, but are laid and delicate, they are the middle ground. One of those bands that embedded itself at the breaking point and wanted to take a risk: neither fish nor flesh; probably for this reason they were never recognized. The song Bad Influence oozes sadness and nostalgia, the singer's warbles fill the heart, I may exaggerate, perhaps, in saying it could be considered proto-slowcore, before Galaxie 500; here there's magic, here there's history. it is not black and it is not white, it is the absolute grey.