Nate Mercereau

Grails is a band most easily described as “restless”. They’ve stubbornly pushed against the staid cliches of instrumental music and towards new sonic frontiers, creating heavily textured albums, stacked deep with epic song hooks and exotic instrumentation. Released in late 2023, “Anches En Maat” is the first new album from Grails in over a half-decade – following the masterful Chalice Hymnal in 2017 – and their first album recorded with all members in the studio together since Doomsdayer’s Holiday in 2008. The core group of founding members Alex Hall and Emil Amos (Om, Holy Sons) joined Jesse Bates, Ilyas Ahmed, and AE Paterra (Zombi, Majeure) in Atlanta, GA to record “Anches En Maat” together – a novel event for a band who had become so accustomed to recording separately and then laboring in post-production for months or years on end. An improbable blend of melted 1980s softcore and daytime soap opera soundtracks, cosmic minimalism, aching Westerns, melancholy electronic pulses, and massive soul-disco strings, “Anches En Maat” is one of Grails’ most ambitious albums of their 20+ year career.