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Album Review: Terry Gross, Soft Opening

Posted in Reviews on January 19th, 2021 by JJ Koczan

terry gross soft opening

Terry Gross, the person, is the host of the interview show Fresh Air on National Public Radio. It’s produced at WHYY in Philadelphia and syndicated through the NPR network of stations to over 600 outlets. It’s a very popular show, and Gross has a very particular way of exhaling while saying its title.

Terry Gross, the band, hail from San Francisco (local station KQED) and are a three-piece featuring guitarist/vocalist Phil Manley (also Trans Am), bassist/vocalist Donny Newenhouse and drummer Phil Becker, who jam. Oh my goodness how they jam. And indeed, they do bring a breath of fresh air to the form of doing so. The narrative — blessings and peace upon it — is that since all three are part owners of El Studio, which is Spanish for… the studio, the band started as a way for them to test out equipment and have fun presumably during downtime when no one else was using the space. So coy. But my, they do jam. A song tracked in late 2016 surfaced the next year and that was it until a series of lockdown jams appeared across months in 2020, reportedly mined from years’ worth of recordings.

These ultimately make a procession leading toward Terry Gross‘ Thrill Jockey-issued debut full-length, Soft Opening. At a manageable 38 minutes, the LP brings together three songs that work off impulses from heavy psychedelic expanse à la Earthless to sunnier West Coast skate vibes and an underlying touch of noise rock gone melodic that only adds to the energy and chemistry to rampantly on display. Two extended pieces, opener and longest cut (immediate points) “Space Voyage Mission” (19:21) and “Worm Gear” (13:32) make up the bulk of the outing, and side B rounds out with the shorter “Specificity (Or What Have You)” (5:55), which condenses the pairing of instrumentalist sprawl and structured verses that the first two tracks make.

“Space Voyage Mission” launches duly cosmic, with Becker working subtle jazz on the snare while Manley trips out and Newenhouse channels the motorik across the first five-plus minutes. There’s a trip-out on effects while the drums still move behind, but the whole thing feels more consumed as they move toward the seven-minute mark. Then Becker stops the drums and Manley introduces ‘the Riff.’ Da-dum, da-dum, da-dum, da-dum dum dum. Newenhouse teases bass entry twice before actually coming in with the drums, and the band launch the first harmonized verse like surf-grunge, but that riff is pure West Coast noise, even if much-transposed onto what Terry Gross want it to be. A guitar solo stretches out over what’s quickly become the central rhythm, and they give that groove its due for the next few minutes until the next comedown signals a change to come.

Once more, it’s an excursion into effects driving the gradual-then-sudden change, and you can’t quite hear the pedal click at 11:42, but it’s there as the guitar thickens and surges forward with drums for propulsion behind it. A quick few lines of vocals from Manley and Newenhouse and then Terry Gross are off into improvised-sounding space-psych revelry, eschewing prog-tinged indulgences while remaining exploratory in vibe and hypnotic in spirit, looping rhythm and lead stretches as they weave into, out of and back into a fade before capping with just the lead, looped, on a long fade. Side A, accomplished.

terry gross

On the most basic level, “Worm Gear” works similarly. There’s a long instrumental opening that gives way to standout riffage and righteous vocals, then much soloing and feeling-of-way-through the finish. But the structure is different, the beginning stretch longer, the ending stretch shorter, and the mood is different as well, with fiercer distortion and play on tempo evoking doom without ever really tipping over into it beyond a basic sense of lumber. Less devotedly space rock than “Space Voyage Mission,” if one thinks of a worm digging in dirt, then the earthbound, grittier nature of “Worm Gear” should make sense. As with the opener, roots in punk and noise are signaled through the underlying groove, but Terry Gross have changed the central ideology of these things and reshaped them into what they want them to be.

The slowdown — blessings and peace upon it — follows a change first signaled by Newenhouse in drawing out the bassline. They get loud, then crash out and between 9:15 and 9:20 move into a purely Sabbathian riff that’s not meant to be anything more than that, but of course is. Vocal echo adds to the largesse before the guitar takes off on a solo with the bass mirroring its melody and the drums holding down the drawn-out flow, and by the time they’re through that — the vocals there, then gone — the willfully filth-coated distortion is locked in and the overarching nod is brought to full, crashing fruition like a dust storm in your brain that suddenly disappears.

That leaves just the sub-six-minute “Specificity (Or What Have You)” to begin with a dogwhistle of intent in the drum tension moving behind the initially shimmering guitar that first subsides as the winding bassline comes into focus, then returns in thicker-toned declaration. They’re not two minutes in before Manley and Newenhouse are together on vocals in what’s inarguably the most straightforward verse/hook on Soft Opening, turning to cosmic grunge via effects and the consistent shove of Becker‘s drum progression. Just when you think they’re going to go far out for the remainder, the voices return and a chorus of sorts emerges, and that’s carried into a finish in a way that’s plotted but still feels organic.

Well, the gear works.

So does the band.

Soft Opening — as opposed to a “grand opening” — functions with the chemistry between ManleyNewenhouse and Becker at its core. These three are obviously not strangers to each other and have clearly honed their instrumental conversation to a point where one element plays off the others — be it the guitar, bass or drums — in such a way as to bolster all three. Entirely possible that Soft Opening is a one-off and it’s however many years before Terry Gross do another record, if they ever do, or it might be three months before the next round of sung-over jams is brought to bear. Either way, the work they’ve done in these three tracks refreshes familiar turns with a sense of personality and finds its niche in the spaces between genre even as it pulls from different aspects thereof.

Terry Gross, Soft Opening (2021)

Terry Gross on Thee Facebooks

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Terry Gross to Release Debut LP Soft Opening Jan. 29

Posted in Whathaveyou on November 9th, 2020 by JJ Koczan

terry gross

See? This is what Thrill Jockey does. Here’s some other fucking awesome band with some other fucking really cool sounding release and then blah blah blah there’s an album and it’s gonna be awesome and here’s a song and it’s awesome and it’s just one more awesome thing and wow I guess your life is just better now because of all this awesome shit right? I mean seriously. What gives?

Do you have any idea how frustrating that is? Some of us are out here working really hard at being miserable bastards, day in and day fucking out, and then here comes a band named Terry Gross after a fucking NPR host and the song is like spacey and jammed out but still has this core of songwriting and it’s really good and makes you want to hear more and then all of a sudden you realize you’re like interested in life and stuff and maybe even a little inspired by it to not be such a shit 24 hours a day seven days a week and then things just get better because it’s all really just a matter of perspective anyway and maybe you’re just tired and you need a nap or to hydrate or maybe you just fucking have low blood sugar or something and it’s not that bad and maybe the nap works and then the song’s still good and whatever fuck you okay fine life is great alright everything’s beautiful. Fine. Fine.

PR wire:

terry gross soft opening

Acclaimed guitarist/vocalist Phil Manley (Trans Am, Life Coach) leads new Bay Area trio Terry Gross

Terry Gross’ debut full-length Soft Opening Out on Jan. 29th, 2021

Terry Gross is an engrossing trio composed of guitarist Phil Manley (Trans Am), bassist Donny Newenhouse, and drummer Phil Becker. The trio are also connected as owners and engineers at Bay Area recording spot El Studio, where they began improvising together as a way to test the boundaries and gear of the studio. Their loose, organic chemistry burgeoned into a deep camaraderie and a sound both expansive and exacting. The three experienced musicians crafted their first full-length album through the pure joy of playing together with no expectations. With the tapes rolling on their rehearsals, the band captures the exuberance of live performance and elevates those recordings through a deft use of the studio as their collective instrument. On their debut LP Soft Opening, Terry Gross channels their cosmic powers and considerable chops into a gleefully mesmerizing odyssey fit for an arena.

Soft Opening took shape over the course of 2016-2019, with Terry Gross writing and refining their songs. “Space Voyage Mission” and “Worm Gear” parallel one another as sinuous jams that pulse with adamantine fervor. Each mountainous epic churns spellbinding repetition and simplicity into dizzying gallops that take hairpin turns into sinewy riffing and elysian vocal melodies. Phil Manley’s guitar takes on a constellation of tones across “Space Voyage Mission” with drifting delays soaring over the Newenhouse and Becker’s driving rhythm section which all succumb to frothing overdrives that spin the song into entirely new pastures. The hypnotic throb of “Worm Gear” grows all the more enchanting as Newenhouse and Becker add subtle shifts to the single-chord barrage. “Specificity (Or What Have You)” contrasts these two in its more traditionally pop-oriented structure while retaining its predecessors wide-eyed energy and delves further into the album’s lighthearted-yet-earnest take on sci-fi tropes from space and time travel to the singularity.

As Terry Gross, Phil Manley, Donny Newenhouse, and Phil Becker are sonic scientists traversing the borderlands of rock. Soft Opening captures the simple joy of a no-holds-barred trio in stunning detail, transporting the listener into the splendor and freedom of rock.

1. Space Voyage Mission
2. Worm Gear
3. Specificity (Or What Have You)

Terry Gross are:
Phil Becker – Drums
Phil Manley – Guitar/Vocals
Donny Newenhouse – Bass/Vocals

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Terry Gross, Soft Opening (2021)

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