Grande Fox – Empty Nest

Self-released

Release date: 19/2/2023

Running time: 41 minutes

Review by: Alun Jones

8/10

Thessaloniki, Greece: the home of Grande Fox, a psychedelic heavy stoner rock band – who have presented us with this, their fourth released project “Empty Nest”.  The band have been in existence for ten years, though they’re a new find for this listener.  I was intrigued to see what sort of feast these Titans would bring to the table.

Yes, the music on offer here is essentially stoner rock, as evidenced best by the Kyuss meets Clutch thunder of ‘Backstab’ and ‘Route 99’.  There’s some swirly psychedelia on display in the calmer moments of ‘Brutal Colors’, whilst final track ‘Birth of an Embryo’ has a doomy, Pantera feel.  The highlight of the album is ‘Hangman’, which features a folky blues element – the description might not entice readers, but believe me – it’s magnificent in its Dionysian glory.

So, there’s plenty of experimentations in this album, which for the most part works very well.  The only exceptions being vocals that move close to rap on ‘Rottenness of Youth’ and the riff of ‘Golden Ratio’ resembling Audioslave’s ‘Cochise’ too closely.  Now I love me some Rage Against the Machine, but sometimes these explorations veer too near Nu Metal for my tastes.

Running at around 41 minutes, the only promo copy I had of the album was a YouTube video, which made it difficult to keep track of which song was which.  However, despite my minor criticisms, I found “Empty Nest” to be an enjoyable and intricately crafted album.  Grande Fox are certainly ones to keep an eye on: they impress with their heroics enough here that one day they could be sitting on top of Mount Olympus themselves.  Yamas!   

Check out Grande Fox online, on Facebook, Instagram, Bandcamp, Spotify and YouTube.

This review is brought to you by Platinum Al and Ever Metal.