Cauldron Review - The Grifters
Published November 6, 1997.
Note: I did not get to choose the article titles.
Elvis isn’t the only best thing out of Memphis:
The Grifters show their stuff on newest release Full Blown Possesion
When you think of Memphis, what’s the first thing that pops into your head? Elvis? Graceland? Well, forget that dead hip-shakin’ fool and his museum to over-indulgence. The Grifters, a quartest from Memphis, Tenn. that have been together for more than eight years, have released their new album, “Full Blown Posseesion,” to much critical praise. It seems being isolated in Memphis from all the other indie bands out there has given The Grifters a unique sound of their own.
The band, consisting of Stan Gallimore, Tripp Lamkins, Dave Shouse, and Scott Taylor, plays a fractured, off-balance type of rock. Their album is very unpredictable. It moves its sound from searing and crunching guitars to acoustic pseudo-psychedelic country to funkified danceable Goth-pop.
The songs fit together to tell a sort of country blues tale of life in hell. The album leads off with a swampy upbeat track “Re-entry Blues” that leads you through the stratosphere to some hellishly beautiful destiny. You can hear the evil waiting behind the hen house in the song “Wickedthing.” The instrumental “You Be The Stranger” would be great background music if Matt Dillon’s character in Drugstore Cowboy were transplanted into Pulp Fiction. The song “Fireflies” seems to be from the point of a child realizing everything is out of their control, and everything must go away in the end.
This album has many good singles available on it, but works even better on a straight through listen. All the songs have different structures and sounds, but flow together entirely too well.
To get more information on this band check out the Sub Pop web site at www.subpop.com.