The Gris Gris
For The Season

If with their previous work Gris Gris had masterfully explored the voodoo musical humus of New Orleans, with this second album the band ventures among the cacti of their native Austin in Texas, retracing the psychedelic path already trodden by the fathers (13th Floor Elevators above all) but going beyond. The only flaw to be found in “For The Season” is that it is a work that sometimes crosses the line between philological and nostalgic, that is, between a sincere and spontaneous reworking of a sound and its excessive and almost reverent mirror reproduction. But the skill of Gris Gris lies precisely in crossing this boundary only in few instances, leaving even those most accustomed to the sound of the '60s often astonished by the kaleidoscopic variety of good cards present in the Gris Gris deck.

As mentioned, the main reference for their music remains the 13th Floor Elevators, but much more is added to the mix by our band throughout the album: garage like Chocolate Watchband, tex-mex influences, gospel, whimsical folk, early Pink Floyd, up to Captain Beefheart. And it is precisely with an instrumental improvisation worthy of the Captain that the album opens: from the sonic chaos of "Ecks Em Eye" emerges a garage stomp with apocalyptic tones, flowing seamlessly into the outro "Peregrine Downstream". The first half of the album is indeed a concept in which the tracks follow one as a continuation of the other: "Cuerpos Haran Amor Extrano" is a languid ballad led by twangy guitars and Floydian organ, "Down With Jesus" a sunny ode to a peyote-tripped pagan Jesus, "Big Engine Nazi Kid Daydream" lets the savior rest on the porch while the band cradles him with banjo. The album's peak is the subsequent "Year Zero", a posthumous product of the hallucinated mind of Roky Ericson, with organ and guitar chasing each other in a memorable refrain, interrupted by a psychedelic detour worthy of "Astronomy Domine". The remaining half of the album proves no less inferior, colliding love songs taken from Grease ("Medication #4") with hallucinatory space lullabies ("Skin Mass Cat"), the Stones on acid ("Pick Up Your Raygun") with orchestral folk with an Indian flavor (the title track).

Music therefore with no pretense of being current, profoundly and proudly old, but which, with its being outside of fads, transcends them, earning an aura of eternal timelessness.