GRANFALOON BUS

Exploded view

CD, Glitterhouse

After putting out several records and circling the usual alt.country-circuit of fameless poverty, clandestine genius and unknown cult-status, Granfaloon Bus seem to step up towards the wider-known status of whispered tips among record-collectors with a drive towards the US and modern country-music. In other words: they will sell an average of about ten or twelve records in every European country with their new release. That is what I call success. And the band does nothing really to make it coming. The Granfaloon Bus have their very own universe of simple chords, eerie-guitar-wailing, nasal vocals and cryptographic lyrics. If they would put more groove and honky-tonkin’ into their songs, one time they could be as big as The Gourds. I also feel a hint of Giant Sand here, especially in the mumbled singing voice and the sometimes strange rhythms (as in “Heatwave Marching Band Soldier”) Or Kurt Wagner (Lampchop) due to the dangled way of storytelling. And, of course, some Neil Young and even The Silver Jews and Souled American on the slower songs sometimes. See what I mean. Stardom and stardom aren’t always stardom. And citing names of other bands in record-reviews ain’t good etiquette, anyway.

“Exploded View” is a nearly perfect record, nevertheless. Too bad, we live in a time where nearly perfect has become almost average due to marketing-databases, digital recording equipments and fifty years of experience in the business. The record has great songs, like “Moans enclosed” (which also contains the phrase that gave the record its title) and also a great overall feeling and atmosphere. I usually listen to a style rather than to certain songs, that is also why it is easier for me to describe, what a band does, than to write about a special song. And the Granfaloon Bus write beautiful, slightly off-the-mark songs that will make you start dangling along.

Especially the lyrical ability of songwriter Felix Constanza are remarkable. You will already have noticed that the name of the band comes from Kurt Vonnegut, but there is more here, every song contains some pearls of poetic beauty and / or philosophical insight. Still, the interpretation is up to you, the listener, just like it should be. So have the choice: lean back and enjoy the emotional turbulences the singer wails himself into. Then the band will take you on a strange trip through the American wayside, through small towns baked in sunlight, through woods and over mountains, you will meet strange characters and even stranger people, until you start to find yourself in them. Or take a look at the booklet and try to make out, what he is wailing about. I’d prefer the second tactic, because you will start to fill up the holes in the songs with your own experiences and opinions, thus making the song your own.

Is there something like happy melancholia? Funny sadness? Joyful world-weariness? (I mean, aside from manic-depression.) “Exploded View” offers about a dozen songs, that seem to be strange and dangly at first, but open up their beauty after the second and third hearing. Maybe that is, what makes a nearly perfect record a perfect one – that it grows with repeats. If so, I’ll rephrase my statement above and make this a “perfect” record, because it will give me joy and thoughtfulness on many a drunken evening in the future.