Woke up this morning and thought to myself that I needed something to go with my Weetabix and, for some reason, that something had to be something bleak and industrial so it would likely come from somewhere like Livingston and it duly did with Gravelle’s EP “Restless Dreams” maxing out the colour black whilst I considered burning up the M8 motorway.
Bleak is indeed how Gravelle - Monique Maurel and Kyle MacNaughton - roll with their heavily compressed and processed sound being possessed of the combat capability to squeeze your ears flat. It’s an artistic choice, of course, and it is also abundantly clear that subtlety was never ever on this duo’s menu for this is a full on, to the point of being brutal, attack on your senses with those analogue synth sounds, angry guitars and distortion constantly overpowering the processed vocals on their journey to existential enlightenment.
Now, I’ve been to Nice and the Isle of Greece and I’ve even been to Junction 3 – aka Livingston - so the hard edged and industrialised anger that powers Gravelle’s car makes sense to me even if I know in my heart that their destination will always be somewhere after sunset.