I first discovered My Grimace at the tail end of last year supporting Vorna at Jyväskylä in Finland, and was suitably impressed by their performance so had high hopes for what their upcoming debut album, Grim Serenades.
Grim Serenades is a pretty gripping listen; there’s a lot of power and aggression to the music, yet it’s also got a good bit of melody to it courtesy of the keys. A good example of this and an early highlight of the album is the track Abandon All, Leave The Mourning Behind, which features meaty vocals and plenty of riffs, coupled with an impressive keyboard line that’s so catchy it’ll be stuck in your head for a long while after the song comes to a close.
One of the best things about the album is that My Grimace takes no prisoners and are relentless in their endeavours. You barely have any time to take a breath between songs before they power through into the next track, and it definitely sounds like the songs on Grim Serenades have been created more for the purpose of playing live than anything else – it’s almost like the energy can’t quite be contained on CD!
As a whole, Grim Serenades is a rather good listen, and is a well-developed first release from My Grimace – there’s a lot of potential to be found in the eight tracks, so it will be interesting to see where they go from here.
8/10
