Search - Gravel :: Break a Bone

SHORTLIVED!

04/21/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"GRAVEL IS THE LAST GREAT,..YES, GREAT! HONEST & TRULY REAL BANDS,..TO EMERGE...WELL,..EVER!..LET ALONE FROM WENCE THEY CAME! (SMALLTOWN) JUST ASK: MARK LANNEGAN OF "SCREAMI'N TREES ABOUT THEM! ...EXCELLENT SONGWRITING,bEUTIFUULY EXACUTED "GRUNGE" NOT "GRUNGE" alternative?...What is?..ROCK-N-ROLL! ...PLEASE, LISTEN!"

Sadly Underrated

Quitty | Olympia, WA USA | 02/10/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Am I the world's only Gravel fan? Well the only one outside Anacortes WA? I used to work at K Records here in Olympia, and I first heard Gravel when K was fixing to put out the "Yesterday" single, which just totally impressed me with the kind of jangled sorrow you can't fake. When Estrus released this record (and the follow-up, No Stone Unturned) the band seemed to suffer from the world's grunge-weariness. They never seemed grunge to me. There is a certain resemblance to Mudhoney's most melancholy moods. But with a rural honesty rather than Mudhoney's urban smirk. In fact, for my money, Gravel was the best band ever at expressing that specifically Washingtonian seasonal affective disorder (meaning we all get suicidal in the gray-ass fall/winter up here). I saw Gravel play a few times, and even though for some reason they would always drive most people out of the room (in Olympia anyway), I was enthralled with their absolute real-ness. They seemed like they'd been recruited from a truck-stop gas station. They didn't move at all (the bass player was in a wheelchair, so he had a good excuse), they were sloppy as hell (Rich Papritz's leads have that rambling Ron Asheton feel but seem driven by alcohol and cough syrup rather than heroin and speed; on the slow {really slow} songs, drummer Bob Vaux always seems a half-beat behind) but the power of the songs (by vocalist/guitarist Bryan Elliott) carried them to gloryland. And my opinion was only shared by my girlfriend at the time, YoYo Records chief Pat Maley, and Beat Happening's Bret Lunsford. Take heart, Gravel, great bands ALWAYS drive everyone out of the room! It happened to Alice Cooper too ya know."