“I get mad whenever I see the self-driving vehicle from San Francisco.”
There’s a now slightly outdated adage that times of strife often produce good art, and in those times, art is in turn a more essential escape. There is a certain truth to it beyond what an entitled sixty-year-old will be keen to tell you; many of the bands born out of the 70s lived in house squats, producing an array of bands including Blondie, Dead Boys and Patti Smith. It’s easy to observe in retrospect, yet we’d expect that ongoing societal and political strife would surely produce the same conditions. Does tapping into a shared sense of unease produce a connection through music that we can collectively empathise or rebel through? A well-known example would be how Rage Against The Machine saw the Seattle riots of ’99 as a source of focus for their music.
Times have changed since then, and the various movements and collective actions have too. With turning points such as the Occupy Movement washed away, there do seem to be some sparks re-kindling, which is what grandon‘s latest record INERTIA looks to be the soundtrack of. From the get-go there is an immediate obtuse nature to INERTIA, seemingly intentional, as it wants you to know that it takes a bold and clear stance. The musings on the likes of “AUTONOMOUS DELIVERY ROBOT” are presented with coarse, nasally, indignant vocals that command the entire record. It is a coin flip that could turn many off the record immediately.
Much of the lyrical content feels like a New York Times op-ed, intent on hitting the many of the buzzwords of the day, as if for SEO metrics. Mentions of ‘ChatGPT’, ‘Neoliberalism’, ‘Democrat’ and ‘Conformity’ hint at insight but take you out of the moment. This isn’t to say there is a direct disagreement with the intended commentary, it just feels incredibly shallow. It parrots the mindset that has seen political movements of such ilk lose and lose again over the past twenty years. “BRAINROT“‘s “your phone is just a mirror” is one of INTERTIA‘s especially painful moments. Perhaps its target audience has yet to be enlightened by the ‘phones might be bad‘ discourse; the rest of us are sick of Black Mirror, and would rather hear solutions.
Many of the highs and lows of INTERTIA are notable thanks to the genre switch up that’s happened since grandson‘s first two records. Dispensing of the grimy trap and pop rap elements, this is palatable rap rock with the production subtlety of a modern Muse album (that is, almost none). Opener “BURY YOU” has a very one-note punk sound to it – it’s perfectly fine, pushing no sonic boundaries, except perhaps for grandson‘s own. Much of the guitarwork is quite literally ‘one-note’, with INERTIA‘s riffs harkening to the ones you jammed over whilst waiting to practice “Seven Nation Army” for battle of the bands. When they let it get heavy, it can raise an eyebrow, showcased early on “AUTONOMOUS DELIVERY ROBOT” (whose lyrical content is also equally bad as “BRAINROT“).
Whilst the record is a tidy thirty minutes, one still gets rather tired of the index-finger-only fretboard patterns by the halfway mark. “YOU MADE ME THIS WAY” features an awkward mix of genres, taking semi-hip-hop elements with choruses akin to Audioslave, both coming across as out of step with each other. The album also suffers from over-hooking the names of its songs, as if making sure you can sing it by the time it’s over. “BELLS OF WAR” is an extreme offender, only just being saved by its overwhelming heaviness.
There are some strong moments to be found across the album. The neatly nu metal inspired “SELF-IMMOLATION” showcases some tidy record scratches with a crunchy breakdown at the end. Closer “PULL THE TRIGGER” is where the new sound of grandson seems to work the best, turning off caps lock, allowing him to take a smarter approach to melodic structure with an inventive chorus. The lyrical content is much more compelling, delving into the topic of school shootings and willing to be vulnerable without worrying about looking cool in the process. The closing sections pull back on the distortion to create something brighter and open, perhaps hinting towards a more optimistic future. A similarly strong track comes just before, “WHO’S THE ENEMY“, which makes great use of its feature from Bob Vylan. Only at the end does Vylan step in to elevating the track, making this duo INERTIA‘s strongest. Once again, the lyricism musters a powerful nature and is the most musically nuanced on the record (“Built off the backs of those from the old world / still labelled a threat / homeland driven with debt / but the enemy we faced hasn’t killed us yet“).
Although it has a strong closing chapter, what is present on INERTIA just simply isn’t very challenging. The array of topics that the record looks to confront will be at the forefront of the intended audience’s mind. The combination of mostly fumbled, scattershot lyrics and lacklustre instrumentals falls short of being the war cry that grandson hopes to raise. There have been many over the years from the aforementioned Rage Against The Machine, to Enter Shikari and Stick To Your Guns, who have managed to make wholly-good rock protest music and continue to do so. With INERTIA, Grandson will not be joining the ranks of such impressive acts just yet.
4/10
INERTIA is out September 5th via XX RECORDS.