The Grapes Of Wrath
High Road

Hello everyone. First review, so apologies in advance for any mistakes, trivialities, and sleep-inducing ramblings.

Sometimes I happen, captured by a detail, a cover, a title, a name, an intuition, to listen to bands I know nothing about. "Grapes of Wrath" is the original title of "The Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck, one of the most powerful novels of the last century. I expected American neo-folk music, campfire music, acoustic guitars, rough voices, and a nice bonfire. Instead, there's the irresistible clapping of "Good To See You" with its carefree melody, and I say to myself "well done, idiot, now go look up everything you can find about them on Wikipedia".

They are Canadian, by the way. The Eldorado of independent rock for at least a few decades. Another demonstration that an omnivorous curiosity always comes with a legacy of prejudices and formal vices; these former boys have been around since the '80s, but this is their first record in 13 years. The entire album is indeed a barrel of good wine left to age, it smells like the mid '90s and it's really pleasant to hear certain clearly post-grunge atmospheres again.

The soft and lethal guitar riff that opens "Isn't There" seems to come directly from Document of the best R.E.M., "Mexico" a big radio single for surf guitar and engaging chorus. Then "Paint You Blue" is a compendium of mid-'90s alternative rock: pulsing and pounding bass, drumming with power of imagination, very heavy distorted guitars but a catchy and easily memorable chorus.

Don’t expect harsh and edgy tones though, the voice remains always suspended between the rarefied and the teasing, even in the most powerful moments like "Make It Ok" they never abandon the taste for elegant melody. McCartney-like elegance also in the couplet "I'm Lost (Miss You)" and "Take On The Day", the first a melancholic ballad for electric piano and voice, the second a rustic and bucolic melody for acoustic guitar.

"Broken" and "None Too Soon" keep the tone of the album high, which also proves to be commendably homogeneous, if not for a terrible drop in style like "Picnic", which seeks at all costs a falsely modern arrangement and a sound too synthetic that clashes with the blood-pumping immediacy of the other songs.

There's still room for another dreamy ballad "Waiting To Fly", even more ethereal voice, sparkling guitars, and bass still in the limelight, nothing sensationally innovative, especially in the chorus that drags with difficulty beyond six minutes, but it is nevertheless pleasant for the atmosphere it manages to create. Just like the concluding "Sad Melodies", an unexpectedly bucolic and very '70s finale, a simple song (but Mark Knopfler could make it last for at least two albums, just saying...).

So I would say a nice surprise. Also because certain sounds that seemed long buried are definitely a nice rediscovery, a CD that in 45 minutes doesn't bore thanks to a very refined formula, played excellently and above all with enthusiasm. 13 years since the last CD, and these mostly unknown Grapes of Wrath give a lesson in style to those who want to make music again at all costs without having anything to add (right, David Bowie?).