{"id":702,"date":"2012-01-31T05:33:32","date_gmt":"2012-01-31T10:33:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=702"},"modified":"2012-01-31T05:33:32","modified_gmt":"2012-01-31T10:33:32","slug":"ep-review-third-of-never-life-saver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2012\/01\/31\/ep-review-third-of-never-life-saver\/","title":{"rendered":"EP Review: Third of Never – Life Saver"},"content":{"rendered":"

Life Saver<\/em> is a various-artists EP. Then again, it’s not. The five tracks on this disc feature CJ Grogan<\/strong> on two tracks, two cuts from Kurt Reil<\/strong><\/a> of The Grip Weeds<\/strong>, and one by a group calling itself Third of Never<\/strong>, a collective including Reil, Grogan and Jon Dawson<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

To complicate things a bit further, the two CJ Grogan numbers are teasers for an upcoming album called Cathedral<\/em>, and the Third of Never cut is an advance release from an album titled Downrising<\/em>. (The Kurt Reil tracks arer exclusive to this EP.) So as of this writing, the only place to get these songs is on this EP.<\/p>\n

Potential listeners for whom Kurt Reil is the only familiar name, well, they have a good idea of what to expect. His busy-in-a-good-way drumming is a constant highlight of Grip Weeds albums, and his vocals suit the high-energy, anthemic power-rock style of that band. Third of Never is subtly different than Grip Weeds, but the two are sonically close enough that \u2013 if you’re a Grip Weeds fan \u2013 you’ll need \u201cLife Saver.\u201d The backing vocals \u2013 presumably from Grogan and Dawson \u2013 give the track a bit of a harder edge that’s not at all unwelcome.<\/p>\n

Reil’s \u201cGonna Find My Way\u201d starts off with a Bo Diddley<\/strong> beat applied to a folky, almost countrified arrangement. But the song’s breezy bridge and constantly shifting beats mean that it’s best labeled as ambitious pop.<\/p>\n

CJ Grogan’s insistently upbeat \u201cTracer\u201d sounds \u2013 most of all \u2013 like a Grip Weeds tune with a non-Grip Weed on lead vocals. Surprising, because Reil’s not credited as being on the track. That sure does sound like his style on the trap kit, though. Instead it’s Mike Polilli<\/strong>, Third of Never’s drummer (Reil used to be that group’s drummer, but is out front on vocals now.) Grogan’s backing on the track also includes Vince Grogan<\/strong>, who’s also<\/span> \u2013 if you weren’t confused enough \u2013 a member of Third of Never.<\/p>\n

Reil’s \u201cWake Up Time\u201d is another catchy rocker, with support from the Grogans (but not Dawson or Polilli). The close vocal harmony on the chorus is the song\u2019s highlight, though the brief lead guitar solo and high-neck bass figures are pretty happenin’ as well.<\/p>\n

CJ Grogan’s \u201cMargaret\u201d closes the disc. Sadly it wouldn’t play on any of my machines. (An occasional peril of CDRs, one supposes.)<\/p>\n

As a teaser, Life Saver<\/em> does alert Grip Weeds fans and other like-minded souls that there’s more good music to come from the House of Vibes studio. Nothing remarkably different from The Grip Weeds, mind you, but quality stuff all the same.<\/p>\n

Note: While you wait for Downrising<\/em>, Third of Never’s 2007 Moodring<\/em> is well-worth seeking out as well, especially for its hard-rocking cover of Pete Townshend<\/strong>‘s \u201cLet My Love Open the Door.\u201d And one of Dawson’s other projects is an outfit calling itself Taboo Stu<\/strong> (named after a brief Third of Never track); their Psychedelic Slosh<\/em> is an off-kilter album full of songs with laugh-out-loud music in-joke titles. I won’t spoil it for you: go find it.<\/p>\n

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Life Saver is a various-artists EP. Then again, it’s not. The five tracks on this disc feature CJ Grogan on two tracks, two cuts from Kurt Reil of The Grip […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-review","cat-65-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}