Grabbel and the Final Cut-Feedback Part II (Live)

Grabbel and the Final Cut put out one of my favorite releases this year with a reissue of their Get Your Feet Back On The Ground EP cassingle back from 1991 in the form of an exquisite 7" for Captured Track imprint Shoegaze Archive. The three tracks were just shoegaze in a hyper condensed, springy, and purest from and I love it. Now while waiting for a rumored compilation of the more of their discography for release later this year, Grabbel and the Final Cut have released an excellent stop-gap with Feedback Part II.

Though calling Feedback Part II is really selling it short. Recorded over two different nights one of their reunion tour dates, the disk captures a band that really feels like they never quit. The guitars blaze and crackle, and the drums smash with ferocity. Front man Stefan Zachau cries out the lyrics with passion (and sometimes anger) as if there was no disconnect from the kid who wrote them practically 20 years ago. Grabbel and the Final Cut were on fire when they performed and it shows. While it's nice to hear the familiar songs booming ("Psycho Popsong" in particular shines) it's the unreleased cuts that are the real treasure here. The likes of "Never Always Mine (But I'll Be Fine)" and & "Teardrops" are not only as great as their previous material, but show a much darker and sadder side to the band that was only hinted at with their EP. "Dark Side" in particular that the band is not one shade of one genre, jumping with eerily quite to screeching, being powerful the whole time.

While live albums usually aren't usually a proper way to showcase a band, Feedback Part II more than rightly gives Grabbel and the Final Cut their dues and brings back a band for their second chance. And the band is more than making due on their return.



Links:

Grabbel and The Final Cut's Website
Buy Feedback Part II here, from the band themselves

Single Review: Grabbel and the Final Cut-Get Your Feet on the Ground EP

This is the world's saddest 7". Not because of the lyrical content, but because of situation. These songs were made by Grabbel and the Final Cut more than twenty years ago in Germany, and were heard by practically no one there and& absolutely no one anywhere else. I have no idea how Captured Tracks project label the Shoegaze Archives managed to dig up this beyond obscure band, but more than props to them for brings there mini classics to the rest of the world.

Despite the label that puts this out, Grabbel and the Final Cut are much more on the noise pop side than shoegaze. Look no further than the A-side "Psycho Popsong". The name alone gives away the band was trying more to create distortion filed pop than harsh feedback infused bliss. However, that's fine because "Psycho Popsong" happens to be a fucking incredible noise pop classic. Pure post Psychocandy era Jesus and Mary Chain excellence oozes from the speaker. The most perfect earworm of a ringing riff is layered with beautiful distortion as singer Stefan Zachau utters in pitch perfect English morbid metaphores abou life and death better than most of the band's UK counter parts could at the time. The song hits right in that part of the chest that tells you "I am listening to something truly incredible".

Then the band goes and places two equally worthy B-sides to boot. "The Finest thing" is a simple & much faster paced song about failing at confronting feelings of longing, while the song itself sound like Dinosaur Jr covering a C-86 band. That comparison is meant in the best way possible. "Out of Work and on the Dole" is almost a combination of the previous two songs, an equal parts love and apathy fulled anthem as galloping drum work pushes the song along. Easily the noisiest song of the bunch, the feedback from the guitar and noise in general of the song help to perfectly cement the tone of the song: the sense of being engulfed by life.

It's astonishing to me that something this excellent not only sounds so modern, but could have been stored away for so long. Thankfully, since this release the band has started playing live shows again too. We can only hope that these sparks of attention lead to more Grabbel and the Final Cut material to come to light. The world deserves more music this good.

(mp3) Grabbel and the Final Cut-The Finest Thing



Links:

Grabbel and the Final Cut's website
Buy Get Your Feet on the Ground EP here, from the Shoegaze Archives