MARY AND THE BOY
S/T
(Low Impedance)

QUEEN ELEPHANTINE
Surya
(Self-Released)

KEN MODE
Reprisal
(Escape Artist)

SHELLSHAG
Destroy Me I'm Yours
(Starcleaner)

THINE EYES BLEED
S/T
(The End)

GREY DATURAS
Return to Disruption 

(Neurot)

GOD'S REVOLVER
Little Black Horse Where Are

You Going With Your Dead 
River

(Exigent)

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I don’t even know whether to say post-rock anymore. I guess the word ‘experimental’ better embodies the sounds of some bands. Amongst them Melbourne’s Grey Daturas who are not wusses enough to shy away from proclaiming ‘metal’ as one of their genres. I salute them because of that. I also salute their prolificacy; just head to their MySpace page and get lost with the list of recordings this three piece has for offer. All in all at least thirteen counting splits (they’ve shared plastic with Bardo Pond, Monarch!, Yellow Swans, etc) and discounting their sough after reissues since 2002.  And that’s what we need, lots of music. It should to a degree be a spontaneous process. And that’s sort of what I get from Grey Daturas, where their shrink-and-grow style hits so often it seems to respond to climate changes. The process itself is slow, but once you are waist deep into Return to Disruption you’ll notice how much change is taking place.

If I counted right there are seven tracks in this album. The differences between each are hard to notice. There are almost no big pauses, or silent passages. The music is for the first four cuts non-stop, the tones are durable and the guitars are thick. During “Answered in the Negative” Grey Daturas sound like tepid psychedelia. And that’s not bad, Grey Daturas’ tunage is therefore more metal. The downward spiral that is this song extends for over ten minutes, after which the song organically reduces itself to feedback.

“Undisturbed” sounds tribal, nightmarish, discordant; in other words the term ‘musical’ can only be applied to it because actual instruments were used in its making, but subject yourself to it for almost four minutes and you’ll suddenly find yourself on your knees begging desperately for less experimentalism. By the time “Demarcation Disputes/Unity” comes around with its subtle grooves and bumps only one thing is surely; Grey Daturas takes ages to get anywhere, and though I am all for bands willing to explore this record sounds a bit like a dog that s chasing its tail. Get my drift? Grey Daturas sounds like a band in search of something, like a group willing to explore horizons, but like the artwork that adorns Return to Disruption, their palette is only monochromatic.

Official Site

MySpace