In this week's paper, Christian Schaeffer wrote a mini-feature previewing Grace Basement's show on Monday, July 16, at Off Broadway (with the Deserters).
Kevin Buckley's project is making some impressive waves already; check out this extremely complimentary blog post at Powerpopaholic and an A&A review here.
Christian himself chimes in with:
Of all the local albums to be released in the past year — hell, the past five years — one of the best is Grace Basement's New Sense. The music is smart, and the tone is varied without being scattered; specifically, it's a genre-hop through alt-country, basement pop, fuzzy rock and acoustic folk. More surprising is the source, 27-year-old Kevin Buckley, who plays every instrument on the record and who is primarily known for his mastery of the fiddle. Buckley performs traditional Irish music — frequently at McGurk's in Soulard and Llywelyn's in Webster Groves — but he's just coming into his own as the leader of a rock band. (Having recently settled on the moniker Grace Basement, Buckley performed under the title Harmony Band for much of the past year.)
He particularly likes "Santa Fe" (which is also one of my favorites):
"Santa Fe" is one of the standouts on New Sense, and its deceptively simple structure and sucker-punch lyrics are emblematic of many Grace Basement songs. It begins almost like an Eagles song, with a simple acoustic guitar strumming over a loping beat. Little by little, the instrumental elements reveal their intentions: Double-tracked vocals provide a kind of Greek chorus, and a slippery Telecaster meanders over the tracks. A once-bubbly organ begins to growl and spit as the song's bridge begins, with the lyrics presaging a darkness on the edge of town: "I fear the new dark age is coming/I've seen the billboards on the highway." It's a heavy couplet for such an unassuming song, a sleight of hand that Buckley pulls throughout the record.
After the jump, take a listen to two tracks from Grace Basement's New Sense.
"Green Machine":
"Santa Fe":
