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Animalism

by Grey Mouse

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1.
Animalism 04:58
2.
Erase 07:52
3.
Bottom 10:23
4.
Breathe In 02:00
5.
Irritation 05:06
6.
Buzz 09:52
7.
Lizard Walk 05:51

about

With each new album, the Moscow-based band Grey Mouse change both their sound and line-ups. For instance, their previous album “Trip” featured a sitar player, and on the next one (“Animalism”), there are two, but at the same time, the “full-time” guitarist disappeared from the line-up, and all the guitar parts were recorded by guest musicians.

It would be wrong to think, though, that Grey Mouse changed their sound to some meditative ethno-psychedelic kind of thing. On the contrary, “Animalism” is a loud and aggressive rock album.

On this record, the band took a turn in the direction of garage hard rock, stoner and maybe even grunge. The sitars provide some flavor, but fuzzy guitars giving out occasional rough-sounding solos are still the main dish here. And there’s some low-tempo harmonica-fronted blues rock too.

The songs are mostly rather short, and this time they even show glimpses of hit songwriting – the musicians are showing some good progress in this field. Still, “Animalism” wouldn’t be a Grey Mouse album without a couple of long trippy tracks – these are “Bottom” and “Buzz” (the latter actually features those oriental ethnic themes).

The vocalist Victoria Barsukova who debuted on the previous record turned out to be a brilliant addition to the band. Her powerful and aggressive singing hits the spot in both slow psychedelic numbers and fast-paced rock songs.

This is indeed a true retro album, and while there has been no shortage of such music lately, Grey Mouse have so much charisma, it is very unlikely that fans of good old psychedelic rock will pass them by. In addition, their music gets more interesting with each new album, and “Animalism” is no exception.




German musikreviews.de review by Dominik Maier:
"Nennt sich eine Band „Graue Maus“, tauft ihr Album „Animalism“ und packt auf das Cover eine Fliege, suggeriert sie zumindest eine gewisse Naturverbundenheit. Wenn dann Sitar und Banjo zentrale Rollen in den Songs einnehmen und im Opener sogar eine Kuh blökt, wird’s doch etwas abstrus. Fast wähnt sich der Hörer auf einer Farm irgendwo in den Weiten der russischen Landschaft.

Zumindest mit der damit verbundenen Abgeschiedenheit weist die Musik gewisse Parallelen auf. Was hier präsentiert wird ist tatsächlich frei von offensichtlich gängigen musikalischen Einflüssen und hat eine völlig eigene Handschrift.
Mundharmonika und Sitar sind die maßgeblichen Stützen des Sounds, der tatsächlich kaum Vergleiche zu irgendwelchen musikalischen Strömungen bietet. Die Songs haben oft den Charakter einer Jam-Session, irgendwo in einem Holzschuppen zusammengezimmert.
Exemplarisch sei hier „Erase“ genannt, das zunächst langsam und von der Mundharmonika getragen beginnt und sich dann hinten raus in einen irgendwie staubigen Rocker verwandelt.
Der Zehnminüter „Bottom“ ist sogar richtig anstrengend. Das anfängliche Gesäusel ist schon sehr eigen, auch wenn die Atmosphäre, die von den reduzierten Klängen der Sitar erzeugt wird, durchaus ihren Reiz hat.
Leider ist aber spätestens nach drei Minuten die Luft raus. Zu gleichförmig wirken die Töne, die sich einfach nicht als schlüssiger Song erkennen lassen wollen.

„Breathe In“ macht das viel besser. Das Western-Feeling wird in einen knappen Rock‘n‘Roller verpackt, zu dem sich doch ordentlich über die angestaubte Tanzfläche eines entsprechenden Clubs fegen ließe.
Gleiches gilt für „Irritation“, das seinem Namen alle Ehre macht und mit schnellen Rhythmuswechseln inmitten eher gemächlicher Strophen überrascht. Dagegen ist der Gesang über weite Strecken Geschmacksache. Zwischen heiserem Flüstern und gedehntem Säuseln ist alles dabei. Fairerweise muss aber angemerkt werden, dass Sängerin Victoria mit ihrem unkonventionellen Stimmeinsatz doch für einige interessante Momente sorgt.

Die knapp zehn Minuten Spielzeit, die „Buzz“ im Anschluss in Anspruch nimmt, hätte sich die Band aber getrost sparen können. Manche Elemente, wie der eine oder andere Gitarrenpart, setzen zwar durchaus Akzente, auf die Länge des Songs gesehen nutzt sich der Jam-Charakter der Musik aber zu schnell ab, statt den Hörer bei Stange zu halten.
Auch der abschließende „Lizard Walk“ ist komplett verzichtbar. Zwar passt das reduzierte Getrommel mit vereinzelten Sitarmelodien gut zum Soundbild von „Animalism“, über knapp sechs Minuten gestreckt und ohne nennenswerte zusätzliche Elemente wird’s aber einfach öde.

FAZIT: Hier wird leider massenhaft Potenzial verschenkt, das sich allein aufgrund der unkonventionellen Instrumentierung bieten würde. GREY MOUSE schaffen es bis auf wenige Ausnahmen nicht, ihren durchaus vorhandenen Charakter in schlüssige Songs zu transferieren. Daher versandet die Musik irgendwo zwischen „ganz nett“ und „anstrengend“ und wird wohl kaum öfter auf dem Plattenteller landen."
www.musikreviews.de/reviews/2021/Grey-Mouse/Animalism/




progarchives.com review by Kev Rowland:
"Even though Grey Mouse were back with their fourth album only a year after their previous one, of course there had been some line-up changes. This time they had added a second sitar player in Sergey Perehov and had dispensed totally with a full-time guitarist and instead had used some guests (although one of these was Herman Aleshin who had guested on a few other albums) and even brought in a banjo player!! The strange thing is though, in many ways this is a far less experimental album than previously, and the sitars are not nearly as in your face as one might expect. In many ways it feels this album belongs to Victoria in that the band are bringing in elements of grunge and garage rock, all steeped with plenty of blues' idioms (we even get a drum solo in "Erase") and it feels in some ways as if they have been listening to Stone The Crows as an influence and have then taken it from there.

This album is much more in your face and less experimental than the last few and given this followed on so quickly from the last one with basically the same line-up that is somewhat of a surprise. There are still times when they do move back in that direction, with the lengthy "Bottom" being a case in point, but it definitely feels as if this is a band who simply refuse to stand still and instead need to keep moving and changing. Back in the early days of prog and classic rock bands changed consistently, often at a very rapid pace and it was sometimes hard to keep up, whereas today it is far more common for bands to find a sound and stick with it for a period of time. That is obviously not good enough for these guys, who keep transforming themselves yet maintaining a common thread, so the albums are all related even if each one is different in its own way. Another very enjoyable release, and it is only due to personal taste that I did not enjoy this quite as much as the previous one."
www.progarchives.com/Review.asp?id=2777284




Italian arlequins.it review by Giovanni Carta:
"Ascoltando produzioni discografiche provenienti dalla Russia in tempi bellicosi come questi che stiamo vivendo è inevitabile provare un profondo senso d’amarezza e sconforto, soprattutto per quanto non è stato fatto collettivamente per evitare che il disastro accadesse… Nonostante tutto, rimane sempre valido il classico vecchio slogan “Make Love, Not War”, specialmente adesso che riscopriamo il terzo disco dei moscoviti Grey Mouse “Animalism”, uscito nel 2014 pochi mesi dopo il precedente “Trip” ma con alcuni significativi cambi di line-up, un po' caotici a dire il vero: troviamo ora in formazione due suonatori di sitar (… e armonica compresa) ma intanto l’ottimo chitarrista Andrew Batalin lo ritroviamo solo in due brani, a ricoprire il suo ruolo abbiamo altri due chitarristi ospiti, Anton Orlov e Herman Aleshin, con l’aggiunta di Arseny Fedorov al banjo; i restanti componenti dei Grey Mouse sono rimasti invariati, con l’aggiunta di un altro suonatore di sitar, Sergey Perehov, ad affiancare Maxim Shutikov… Il nucleo centrale formato dalla sezione ritmica dei fratelli Chunikhin è ancora ben saldo, come è rimasta invariata anche la petulante, carismatica e fascinosa voce di Victoria Barsukova; qualche variazione nel registro musicale dei Grey Mouse invece la possiamo percepire, nell’inclinazione verso suoni un pochino più duri e grezzi, quasi garage talvolta, ma nel suo insieme l’identità del gruppo rimane fermamente posizionata su un solido e relativamente tradizionale heavy psych rock con tasso di “acidità” mediamente alto e varie deviazioni verso l’hard progressivo… La poetica psichedelica del precedente “Trip” si è fatta dunque meno delicata e “cosmica”, pur mantenendo intatta la stessa formula l’approccio di “Animalism” si è fatto lievemente più terreno e diretto, senza comunque tralasciare i profumi d’oriente e l’esotismo volutamente un pò retrò che caratterizza parte importante dell’identità musicale dei Grey Mouse… Da qui in avanti l’equilibrio interno per svariati motivi verrà meno e si perderanno le tracce dei Grey Mouse fino al 2021, con il ritorno dei fratelli Chunikhin affiancati dalla voce di Mikhail Kudrey e dal violoncello di Uliana Volkova per un nuovo inaspettato lavoro “A Moment Of Weakness”, disco poco reminescente dell’euforia psichedelica passata e più ancorato verso un sound tetro e scarno, una sorta di gothic/doom folk country rock autoriale che sembra presagire il punto di non ritorno..."
www.arlequins.it/pagine/articoli/alfa/corpo.asp?ch=7384

credits

released August 29, 2014

Victoria Barsukova – vocals
Alexey Chunikhin – bass guitar
Kirill Chunikhin – drums, percussion
Maxim Shutikov – sitar, harmonica
Sergey Perehov – sitar

Involving:
Anton Orlov – guitar (Bottom, Buzz, Irritation)
Herman Aleshin – guitar (Lizard Walk)
Andrew Batalin – guitar (Animalism, Erase)
Arseny Fedorov – banjo (Animalism)

label: noname666.bandcamp.com
cat# 764 UPC 758869456673 (11/6/2020)

CD label: Soyuz Music (2014)

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Grey Mouse Moscow, Russia

Grey Mouse is a Russian rock band that features elements grunge, stoner of psychedelic, progressive and experimental rock. During its existence, with a different composition of its members, the band has recorded and released five studio albums

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