Spectreview: Great Grandpa – Four of Arrows

-WITCH HAZE-

For a guide to the review color rating system, click here.

“If life’s a dream
Then I’m not sleeping
I’m not sleeping in”

Four of Arrows, Great Grandpa’s revelatory second album, is many things, but above all it’s a testament to the copious yields of well-executed ambition. Not to say that the album’s songs are any more risky or experimental than those of your favorite indie band, but change is always a little scary. When artists begin to find a larger audience based on a specific sound, they can feel compelled to lean on merely repeating that success, especially in a saturated climate where success is as elusive as it’s ever been. Plastic Cough was an auspicious if slightly imbalanced debut LP, with a focus on 90’s-based emotive grunge (hallmarks of the new Seattle underground) and enough killer songs to make a compelling case for the world’s greater attention. That record proves now to be a red herring, more of an adroit hypothetical than a definitive mission statement. Great Grandpa took grand efforts to make sure they were ready to deliver that announcement for real, and as a result Four of Arrows positively bursts with confident shifts in sound without sacrificing identity in the process. Its highs are higher, its silences are more cavernous, its arrangements are more adventurous and its blows pack a punch that rivals the genre’s biggest hitters.

Boasting superb pacing, Four of Arrows bears a stylistic diversity that feels directly informed by the last five years of developments in American indie rock without dipping into imitation or pastiche. The whole album feels structurally battle-proven, with consistently tight and propulsive rock songs, pop moments stuffed with sharp hooks, and folk tracks that are alternatively welcome breathers and heart-stoppers. Every turn contains a moment where the band is outdoing itself: while opening rockers “Dark Green Water” and “Digger” see them casually reach historical peaks in angst, they’ve also never sounded more mature than on the tender, devastating familial scars of “Split Up The Kids,” nor more anthemic than on the inspired “Mono no Aware” or the ultra-accessible country-pop bounce of “Bloom.” “English Garden” alone is a astounding feat, as the band recontextualizes what would be a math-rock bridge into a graceful refrain anchored by Abby Gunderson’s swooping violin. Possibly the album’s most successful risk, however, is the side-dividing “Endling,” a resplendent solitary piano piece courtesy of guitarist-vocalist Pat Goodwin that comes out of nowhere. In lesser hands, its inclusion might have read as ham-fisted, maybe a little maudlin or pretentious; within the context of Four of Arrows’ focused genre-bending, it’s a strong signifier of how comfortable the band feels in this new mode.

All of these included styles are products of an uncommon democratic songwriting process. Though it’s mostly Menne’s fracturing mezzo-soprano you’re hearing, every member contributes to the lyrical pool, a bewildering fact considering how unified the vision is here. Menne becomes the voice through which the whole band speaks, but Menne is also a force onto themself, just as naturally suited to this album’s softer environment as the band’s cyclonic debut. Their defining performance may well be on the band’s reworking of “Mostly Here,” a swooning slowcore epic that, in this new iteration, sees crackling amps replaced with delicately swaying guitar. Menne pushes and pulls in virtuosic kind, reaching high in the verse and coming back down in the chorus, building to an explosion before settling to rest in the coda. Compare this version to the one on 2015’s Can Opener EP and the difference is startling, especially considering how little time has passed. It’s not just that things have changed; plenty of bands have shifted shape just as unaware of their general transformation as anyone else. It’s that Great Grandpa are finally fully awake, aware of what (and where) they want to be and searingly confident in their ability to bring themselves to that level. That may keep them from writing anything as swaggeringly fun as Plastic Cough’s “Teen Challenge” ever again, but as J Mascis famously drawled about band life, “It’s not about having fun.” Breakthroughs, after all, quickly become serious business, and Four of Arrows represents nothing if not a band teetering on that precipice.

Highly recommended for instilling goosebumps.

Edit: I initially wrote that Pat Goodwin was a bassist. He is, in fact, a guitarist. Apologies Pat.