Grand Drive: self-titled

Alt-country’, ‘Americana’, call it what you will, it’s everywhere. The day I bought an album by St. Thomas it really hit home. When you hear a Swedish postman signing about cowboys and sounding like Neil Young, you just have to take stock. Not long before that, sitting in a cozy bar in Kuala Lumpur, I listened with incredulity as a diminutive Malaysian in Stetson performed a one-man “Rhinestone Cowboy”. Alt-countricana has gone global. Slide guitar is the new Big Mac.

Nowhere has this been more evident than in the UK. Ryan Adams has apparently moved here, and we couldn’t get enough of Kurt Wagner et al at the second alt-country event at the Barbican in London. And, of course, we’ve got our own lot. The best of the bunch are doubtless Grand Drive (named after a local street near where they rehearsed), and, in full circle, they’re now releasing this self-titled record in the States. Talk about selling ice to the Eskimos.

The band recently featured on Both Sides Now, a compilation of various ‘Americana’ and it’s easy to see why. Elements of Wilco and Mercury Rev are evident, although Grand Drive are very much their own beast. They also cite Bruce Springsteen as a big influence, but their own sound is distinctively full and almost syrupy thick. Vocal harmonies, layered guitars, organ, piano, strings and horns are all blended with subtlety –- no instrument dominates what becomes an intricate organic whole.

The band has already attracted critical and popular praise in the UK for the three albums they have released here so far. This self-titled effort is a compilation of those records: 1999’s Road Music, 2000’s True Love and High Adventure and 2002’s See the Morning In. While I cannot complain about the tracks that have been picked (bar “Needle in the Groove”), it is inevitable that Grand Drive lacks a real sense of cohesion. This is not an album conceived in itself more of an introduction to the band. The advantage is that you do get a sense of Grand Drive’s evolution –- albeit in reverse, as tracks from See the Morning In open the album.

The creative hub of Grand Drive, as with so many bands, is a pair of brothers. Julian and Danny Wilson, Australian-born London-raised, founded the group back in 1997 and soon recruited Ed Balch (bass) and Paul Wiegens (drums). The first six tracks show the Wilson brothers diversifying and they take individual song-writing credits (there early stuff is all credited as being co-written). This may showcase their independent strengths and is a promising sign for the future, but it is the middle four songs, from True Love and High Adventure that really get you.

Whether it is the toe-tapping Wild West percussion of “Wheels” or the padded paranoia of “Nobody’s Song in Particular” this is Grand Drive at their best. “True Love and High Adventure” is the jewel in the crown — there is a nod to the Beatles’ “A Day in the Life” in the way it dismantles before reforming and bursting into heavenly harmony. I could have heavy-duty dental work performed on me during this track and remain blissfully ignorant throughout. This is perfect aural anesthetic.

The more recent stuff is a bit jauntier. “Track 40” is a real pop song, with a catchy chorus and everything. Yet it also tremendously moving -– a song about keenly felt childhood nostalgia. “Firefly”, the album opener, is charming enough to pull off its somewhat sentimental optimism, but “Needle in the Groove” is just too jagged and rough. It’s an isolated miss though. This is not immediate music; you need to let it slowly well up over you and seep in through your pores. Many of the songs are given a thick fluffy mattress of strings to rest on and are never hurried — they seem to develop their own internal momentum. The harmonies are beguiling and unobtrusive and there is a comfort-blanket warmth to the songs once you’ve absorbed them. If I had a hammock, that’s where I’d listen to Grand Drive.