Black Tar Prophecies 4

I can honestly say I've never heard anything like this before. Grails are an immensely talented band, and the Black Tar Prophecies material exhibits their more experimental side. Black Tar really is the perfect name for such experiments - most of it is dark and feels like trudging through waist-deep molasses. And I love it.One of my favorite parts of this EP is the spliced-in sound clip snippets. One of them, in the first track, is altered and slowed down, making it sound like the record is actually covered in a viscous, tar-like substance: "Nobody knows the trouble I've seen...nobody knows my sorrow." There's a lot of great material here in this 5-track EP, and possibly the album highlight comes during the final song, "Up All Night." A lighter note in what is otherwise a very dark conceptual piece of work, the piano arrangement in this track is beautiful and soaring.It's hard to refer to what you hear here as "music." It certainly is music, in many senses of the word, but it's really more like sonic art. The whole EP flows together into what would have made a great score for a dark Italian noir film. Can't wait for Vol. 5, which Grails has said will be a split with one of their favorite bands, and Vol. 6, undoubtedly after that. I hope these guys keep up the great work, because it really is a shining beacon in a sea of generic-sounding radio-friendly pop music. Even if the beacon is dripping with black tar...