My Review: Grey Lips - MASQUERADE

Grey Lips - Masquerade 

Perrine Berger and Matthieu Hardouin have been in the old scribe's sights for some time now, and now with the band Grey Lips he can say that their union in this project offers the possibility of enjoying seismic spaces and musical turbulence in rarefied Switzerland, a country that knows how to produce the right noise, the one that fascinates and gives power. Such a debut deserves attention and specification, as their scope is vast and encompasses time zones of origin of musical genres that they have managed to make even more credible and relevant. Three singles have given us an idea, but it is the album that conquers without a doubt: rock finds its old genuine flame, side by side with the need to integrate salty pills of hallucinated Post-Punk, almost sweaty, almost imbued with Industrial textures, with Matthieu's voice he knows exactly how to create links with pain and poetry, just as Justin Sullivan of New Model Army knows how to contemplate. The sound waves bypass the Alps and glide over Geneva, where the two have devised strategies to make our listening an old-fashioned situation: being in a rehearsal room listening to friends, because everything vibrates with warmth and immediacy. The guitars are often in the zone of Sonic Youth's Daydream Nation, they move quickly to tickle other bands and have a beer together. 

And so, not accidentally, we hear how they have a desire to take their sound to the place where everything scratches and pushes the mind on vertical journeys. We descend towards that art form that makes drives and hysterics possible, we are left with sweat and the distinct feeling that these songs are dirty with for once a beautiful oil and a breath that wants to let out anger that is not just screaming. All the stars here would deserve a description, but I invite you to have faith: listening will make you discover that they can be dynamic and altered in the way that makes what they do the King's garden, that of music...

Alex Dematteis

Musicshockworld

Salford

28th January 2023

https://greylips.bandcamp.com/album/masquerade