Grigax, Life Eater: Bleak Meditations
Posted in Reviews on August 25th, 2017 by JJ Koczan
Portland-based Grigax is the one-woman vehicle of Alyssa Mocere. Also a graphic designer/tattooist who has done art for Infiltrator, Summoner, Matt Pike and others, Mocere released a two-songer demo under the Grigax moniker in 2015 and has aligned to Dullest Records and partnered with drummer/engineer Luis Hernandez for the debut full-length Life Eater — a 32-minute/seven-cut collection that finds poise within a tumult of influences from the sphere of post-rock, doom, black metal, folk, psychedelia and drone, finally resolving itself in the moment-of-clarity “Nascita,” a clean-sung after-grunge push of overdriven guitar and deceptively patient drumming. Two sub-two-minute atmospheric pieces, the intro “Bardo Thodol” and the centerpiece “Lutto,” set up a two-sided dynamic, but whether one makes their way through Life Eater in vinyl-style halves or in a single-stream front-to-back fashion, the scope with which Mocere undertakes her material as Grigax is expansive, at times frightening in its affect, and unflinchingly creative.
Whether that creativity shows itself in the eerie keys and backward sonics that commence with “Bardo Thodol” or the bass-led marching spaciousness that ensues on the subsequent “Circcolo,” the longest inclusion here at 8:53, it is a resolute position from which Mocere directs the material one way or another on a song-by-song basis. Life Eater was recorded over a period of two years, and frankly, it sounds like it. That’s not a dig on the album at all — but a note on the constructed feel of the songs that make it up, Mocere building “Circcolo” one layer at a time, or experimenting with different elements to see what most brings her intent toward realization or, better yet, uncovering what that intent might be as the harsh wash in “Splitting” is shaped, her melodic vocals over top keeping a thoroughly human presence to what might otherwise feel purposefully cold and uninviting.
If anything, this notion of Life Eater‘s material as something that came together one layer at a time — which I admit to some degree is narrative being read into what might’ve been a completely different writing method, but inevitably how it had to work at least in part at the studio, since Mocere handles multiple instruments in addition to vocals and can only be in so many places at once — adds to the aesthetic of the record itself, which is deeply imbued with a meditative sensibility. Whatever else its varied scope might encompass, it sounds like a ritual playing out in swells of volume and passion. What the meaning is of the exploration at work in the buzzing low-end progression of “Circcolo” and the post-heavy scathe of “Splitting” — or for that matter in “Iron Quill”‘s blend of Wolves in the Throne Room-style blackened devouring and harmonized vocals and the manipulated spiritualism of “Zeis,” on which Mocere takes position behind the kit as well to conjure a vibe born of Om‘s Advaitic Songs but ultimately given its own crux via squiggly guitar and her own far-back-as-far-out singing — remains largely unknowable just by listening, but that would appear to be at least part of the point.
As deep as Life Eater goes, it doesn’t share everything — all lyrics save for “Nascita,” for example, come from 1900’s Harlequinade by Henry Rightor — and feels no need to come right out and explain itself or its jumps from one genre to another. Like the most commanding of works, it simply is. It stands its ground and will let the interpretations shake out as they will amid the effectively droning fluidity of “Lutto” and the searing that follows on “Iron Quill,” each turn Grigax takes on presenting some measure of its own intent while feeding into the noted idea of the album as part of a single ritual being shaped, carved out like a totem for a one-person pagan anti-dogma to be left in the Cascadian woods somewhere outside Portland and confuse man-bun hikers as they pass it by. Obscure and evocative, haunting and not at all chaotic in the way one might expect, even unto the Jarboe-esque rhythmic breathing that starts “Nascita,” Life Eater is both raw in its sound and rich in expression, and even if its component parts didn’t unite as well as they do, the sheer diversity of its approach would make it one of 2017’s most impressive debuts.
Particularly with the adoption of an outside speaker for the lyrics to “Circcolo,” “Splitting,” “Iron Quill” and “Zeis,” Grigax would seem to be setting up a push-pull dynamic with the listener. On the one hand, each movement sounds and feels almost entirely personal, and yet a key component of their making — quite literally the words Mocere is saying — come from a source other than herself. Does that mean Life Eater is somehow tentative in its approach? Not necessarily, and positioning “Nascita” as the closer, with its forward-moving linear build and Neurosis-born “Stones from the Sky” moment in the guitar, feels especially significant in this regard; Mocere gives herself the opportunity to make the album’s final statement. I’d be interested to know when “Nascita” was composed in relation to the other material surrounding, as it’s almost too easy to interpret it as a sign of things to come from Grigax as an ongoing project and perhaps Mocere letting her audience know, at last, that there’s a core consciousness at work behind all the breadth, nuance and pummel of the tracks.
Indeed, it’s her voice as the last element we hear on “Nascita,” and after the guitars, drums and the rest fade out, she gives a melodic reinterpretation of the rhythm breathed through at the outside some seven minutes earlier. Again, it’s hard to know exactly just what that transformation is saying, but the fact that Life Eater engages on that level — leads one to ask the question at all, in other words — is a testament to the effectiveness of its artistry. In thinking of where Grigax might go from here, there’s setup for expansion of reach in any number of directions, whether it’s playing up the psychedelic aspects of “Circcolo” and “Zeis” or the to-a-crisp tonality of “Iron Quill,” or finding some single modus over time that draws from all of them. More important is the work Mocere and Hernandez have done in bringing Life Eater to fruition as it is, and the manner in which those efforts have succeeded in crafting something so much of its time and place and yet so isolated and severe. Regardless of how Grigax evolves, one expects it will evolve, and looks forward to discovering what wonders and horrors are unearthed in that process.
