Pouncing on us like we’re about to be swallowed up whole by some vicious beast, Greye wastes no time getting right into the guts of the southern grooves in their new single, “Down Not Out.” In a staggered beat, the band finds their tempo and a smoldering guitar tonality to match inside of the first thirty seconds of the song, and before we know it they’re off and running with a hard rock rhythm that has been flanked with an almost bluesy strut.
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The music churns us with a discordant decadence, and even though there isn’t a lot of love for the drums in this mix, they’re hearty enough to make an impact on the backend just the same. In “Down Not Out,” Greye doesn’t teach us anything that we didn’t already know about their music if you’ve been following their story thus far, but I don’t get the feeling that they were trying to change the world as we’ve come to know it with this release. Without skipping a beat, they’re playing to their roots and giving us the kind of punch few others can these days.
The arrangement for “Down Not Out” plays with nuanced grooves in a fashion that is relevant to young southern rockers as well as those who came up on early gens of the genre, but the chaos in its structure isn’t what truly sells its goods.
At the bone-chilling midway mark in the song when the guitar descends into a sway that stirs up more of a reaction than any of the lyrics ever do, things take a turn for the intense as we seemingly get wrapped up in a catastrophic whirlpool beside the riffing. This juncture of the groove in “Down Not Out” is particularly exciting, not only because of the sense of impending doom about to befall the bassline, but because of the way that the band’s chemistry is heightened with the ebb and flow of the music. It’s two layers of excitement transpiring at the same time, and we’re right in the middle of it all.
Everything comes to an end in “Down Not Out” quite firmly, but connoisseurs of a true hard rock rhythm like myself aren’t too indulged to stay away from this song for long. For what I look for as a critic, Greye has made a pleasurable new release for their fans in this latest single, and though it’s just as powerful as some of the material they’ve released before now has been, it’s evidence of their continued growth as a unit. “Down Not Out” sports a swaggering swing and some slick southern harmonies no matter which angle we’re analyzing it from, and in a season that has been missing a little danger amongst indie bands, they deliver a much-needed shot of hot melodicism.
There’s going to be a lot more talk about this group as the fall presses forward, and if you’re wondering why, you needn’t look much further than this single and the dynamics that it wears so proudly on its sleeve.
Garth Thomas