HOLY GROVE - S/T (2016) CDdigi

Remember when heavy rock bands wrote songs? In the early ‘70s, Grand Funk, Bang, and Deep Purple brought hooks and choruses to seriously weighty tunes. In 2015, Portland, Oregon’s Holy Grove walks in the long footsteps of tradition, pitting soulful vocals, searing guitar solos, and swinging grooves into its own Bic-flicking dinosaur stomp. After wowing NW audiences for several years, the band is now ready to unveil its self-titled debut—seven songs of blazing riffs, and cloud-piercing wails, with enough rhythmic heft to satisfy today’s doom-hungry audience. Vidal’s lyrics of myth and fantasy coast on a massive flying carpet of guitar riffs, kept aloft by a pounding pulverizing rhythm section. Holy Grove is far more than a toe-dipped-in-the magic spring, but a patiently crafted statement of intent produced by the band with major love and assistance from master “engine-ear” Billy Anderson (Sleep, Melvins, etc).

1. Death Of Magic
2. Nix
3. Holy Grove
4. Huntress
5. Caravan
6. Hanged Man
7. Safe Return

Listen!