2 out of 5

Label: Interscope

Producer: Brian Deck

A lotta right moves, but it just feels empty.  The Grates have a problem: they don’t know what kind of band they want to be.  Snotty pop-punk?  California?  Trashy rock?  Peaches fuzz?  Some kinda Two Ton Boa / Rasputina / other reference thing?  There are bands that get mileage out of style-hopping across songs or in-song, but it’s generally part of what’s ingrained in the band’s vibe… their overall style is one of blending genres.  Whereas Grates just feel like they’re perpetually undecided, one of the more subtle – but more discomfiting – aspects of that, on album is how, at about track 4 or 5, EVERY song seems like that end of the album.  Because it’s written to completion.  They’re not singles, they’re just wholly contained, no sense of sequencing in mind.  This is all a shame – or perhaps enabled by the following fact – because this is some of producer Deck’s best work in a long while, a band varied enough in sound that he can whip out his kitchen sink abilities that haven’t gotten much play since Califone days, but also dynamic enough to really let the crisp echo of his style ring out loud and proud.  The album just sounds damn good.  And it starts okay, with a weirdo lead-in track (that’s all sing-songy creepy) to what appears to be a rockin’ That Dog. style crunchy pop-punk number… but it never hits home.  As the songs jump around from cool genre to cool genre, so too does lead singer ‘Patience’ (GAG, SORRY IF THAT’S YOUR REAL NAME) flit around aping whichever singer she desperately wants to sound like.  It’s all very talenty, and any given track hints at sing-a-longableness, and yet none of it feels legit.  This sounds like people who very desperately want to be in a band.

They do it well.  It’s produced magnificently.  But that don’t give it instant credibility.