Great Grandpa return after a six-year hiatus with their third album. They were working on a follow-up to 2019’s Four of Arrows in 2020 when COVID essentially shut them down. Time passed and members moved away from their home base in Seattle, drifting apart without officially breaking up. Frontman Al Menne spearheaded the effort to reunite the group in 2023, and the wide-ranging Patience, Moonbeam is the result.
Things begin quietly, with “Sleep”, a gentle but slightly unsettling string introduction that lasts about 30 seconds. “Never Rest” follows, opening with a soft acoustic guitar and string flutters still playing in the background. Menne enters equally softly, singing about how “I never rest / Only sleep.” The rest of the band enter after the first minute, filling out the sound but leaving the subdued mood intact. Various cellos and violins continue to drift in and out throughout. Eventually, after three minutes like this, loud electric guitars and drums show up to rock out through the end.
Next up, “Junior” is a much more easygoing song. Menne’s vocals are relaxed, the guitars have a bit of a country-rock feel, and the rest of the group are there to add thick vocal harmonies here and there. This song builds to a catchy refrain that the band rides out for the entire final minute. Essentially, “Junior” sounds like an excellent take on Great Grandpa’s fellow native Seattlites, Band of Horses.
After these two tracks, one could be forgiven for thinking they’ve got Great Grandpa’s number. They’re solid songwriters who aren’t afraid to turn up the guitars occasionally but are generally more in singer-songwriter mode. That’s how it goes for the entire first half of the album. “Emma” is another acoustic guitar-based song focusing on romantic longing and appropriately downbeat. “Lady Bug”, on the other hand, is a bright power-pop song through and through. It adds some processed drums, synths, and piano to the mix, but mostly it’s got the best hooks on the album.
So it’s a shock at the midpoint when “Doom”, which begins with a chorale and string introduction, suddenly turns into a note-perfect 1990s Radiohead pastiche. It’s all here: the reverby guitar tones, the skittering drums, the percussion clicks and shakes, the tempo changes and sudden guitar distortion, and an ominous string accompaniment. The band keep this going for quite a while before slowing down into a chunky, heavy outro. Hearing Great Grandpa shift to this entirely different sound is impressive.
“Doom” is the real outlier on Patience, Moonbeam, but the back half adds some other interesting sonic wrinkles. “Task” opens with an unusually bright acoustic guitar line, and features Menne singing in what seems to be pitch-shifted an octave up. As the song goes on, the group add a sprightly banjo line. It closes with a deceleration, and the entire group repeats in unison, “Won’t you tell me what my task is?”
“Ephemera” is a chilled-out and downtempo, rolling along on a trip-hop drum loop and an R&B-style bass and keys groove. Menne’s falsetto singing seems genuine here, not pitch-shifted. The chorus, “Tell me, tell you / What’s down the garbage chute / Baby’s got secrets, too”, is both catchy and weird enough to be memorable. The introduction to the closing “Kid” is very obviously digitally manipulated, giving Menne an extra three or four layers of harmony.
“Kid” also brings back the strings after this opening, before sliding right into a mid-tempo piano-driven power ballad. The song is content to drift along like this for a couple of minutes before stopping dead for an extended drum fill. At this point, it opens up into a widescreen, Beatles-esque sing-along. Just as that sounds like it will be the big finish, the band pull back and it’s just voice and piano, closing out the record with a warm, lovely finish.
Great Grandpa have made a really nicely balanced record with Patience, Moonbeam. The songwriting is solid throughout, and Menne’s voice is compelling. He’s distinctive and just a little weird, keeping the listener’s attention. Arrangement-wise, there’s a strong enough core sound for the band to re-establish who they are, but a good handful of tracks spin off in other directions. This keeps the album from dragging, and perks things up periodically.
Patience, Moonbeam is a strong record, but it also makes me wonder what Great Grandpa may have in store for the future now that they’ve got their feet back under them.