For a number of years now, we have been following and featuring the music of Idaho solo musician Storie Grubb.
This prolific and multi-faceted artist has a way of writing and recording off-beat, interesting and melodic indie pop-rock music that also has a number of other genre stratifications.
On his album, American Pastures, Grubb brings it all home by writing the tale, it seems, of America, through his eyes. But on the opening track, “Visual Aids,” his music takes on a more personal nature.
The interesting melodies and lyrics of “Visual Aids” are a form of illustrations in sonic terms. As a visual artist himself, Grubb wanted to “pay homage to the artists and musicians that inspired me.”
“I also write songs from different perspectives quite often. Though I leave it up to the listener to make each song their own and join me on a strange symbiotic musical journey.”
“Most of us feel the same deep down about the things that really matter,” he says, adding, “I try to paint a picture that anybody can walk right into. In the end, it’s a song about being a struggling artist.”
At first, the number of tracks (13) is daunting, which is alleviated by many are less than two or three minutes long. The opening track slides right into the psychedelic swirls of “From The Bottom Up,” a track that clocks in at 1:41 minutes.
“Faux Lover” bumbles along with a pulsing rhythm, lo-fi jangling guitars, and Grubb’s nasally vocals.
“It’s a quaint, powerful song about dating, love, breakup and all that stuff,” he says.
The song practically merges with “Pop Singers,” which sounds like an extension of “Faux Lover,” in a way, but with a slightly different signature.
In fact, if one is simply streaming the album and not paying close attention, the two tracks could easily be mistaken as one track with two parts (or just one track).
That’s forgivable considering that the average track is a bit less than two minutes flat. Therefore, it’s easy, at times, on this album, for some tracks to sound like they are one, rather than two.
It is not a big deal because there are songs like the wonderful psychedelic strangeness of “Build High Aim Low.”
On “The Gaff of the Century,” Grubb changes it up with a manic sensibility that dominates the overall mood of the album. But with “Gaff,” he throws in some sunny guitar playing.
The album’s title track is Grubb’s attempt to fill a space; paint a landscape. “I wanted to create sunshine in a sea of darkness,” he adds. “It’s also the title track so I wanted to create something that any listener could appreciate.”
If you’re open to off-beat, lo-fi DIY indie tracks like “Latah and Rosehill,” and post-grunge alt. rock songs like “Trust Fund Punks,” you’ll find those little snacks on the album as well.
Before long you’ll be transported to another realm. “Honky Tonk and Two Smoking Barrels” blends in a marching drum-styled percussion together with guitar noodling and a honky-tonk outro.
The closing track, “Over The Hill,” is a lament about aging. “It’s a personal song. I turned 40 last November. I was in a strange headspace for a bit there.”
“I don’t know where I fit in this world a lot of the time. It’s only through art and music that I feel I’m doing what I was put here to do. This song and really this whole album is about me coming to terms with my existence.”
Even though he is now 40, as he laments so, Gruff (whose real name is Sean Kelly) has a childlike (not childish – big difference) charm in his music, lyrics, and vocal delivery. It’s not hard to be pulled into his world.
From one track to the next, Grubb treats the listener to an array of artistic lyrics and musical styles, from the flourishes of country and western barn music to lazy, stoner guitar-driven verses and from a lo-fi psychedelia to upbeat indie pop.
Still, the baseline, fast-paced percussions, vocal delivery, and unconventional instrumentation – like slacker dudes on speed – underlies almost the entire album. Other examples include “Slinky Beezel” and the somewhat lo-fi punk-fueled “Fall For Anything.”
His music, as long as we have been listening to him, is always unique, creative, wordy – sometimes poetic – and completely unconventional. The one danger of short tracks is that once a listener gets into a track they dig, it can end all too soon.
Numbschool, a 7-track album dropped in February of 2019, is another, among many, albums dropped by Storie Grubb worth listening to, as can be said for the seven-track album, The Rat Race, dropped the month before. In 2019, Grubb dropped an album every month of the year.
Did we not say he is a prolific artist? In the past five years, he has dropped 20 singles or albums, all available on Storie Grubb’s Bandcamp page. And he is totally DIY – writes, performs all of the instruments (except where noted), records, and mixes.
Review by Phillip E. Daoust