Grails

Doomsdayer’s Holiday

[4/5]

Bands without singers are a dime a dozen these days, but few go as far as Grails toward making true instrumental music rather than just rock without vocals. On Doomsdayer’s Holiday, the group stretch their already limber aural quiver to encompass new sounds from around the world. From Eastern rhythms and instrumentation to bombastic classical orchestration, Doomsdayer’s Holiday shows a band pushing the limits of psychedelic post-rock and testing the boundaries of post-metal. The album moves clearly forward from light to dark, starting with blood-curdling screams on the ominous title track. Along the way, Grails visit every mood and movement imaginable before eventually culminating with “Acid Rain,” a lush, mellow epic awash in an ocean of horns, voices and static. (TEMPORARY RESIDENCE LTD.) Oakland L. Childers