Unappreciated Gems 3 – Gridlock

Those of you who have been following this blog for the last few weeks will know that in between ranting and reviewing drool-inducing pieces of technology, we also like to talk about great albums that a lot of people missed the first time. Granted these are usually in the rock/ industrial/ IDM fields, but there’s a lot of excellent music in there which transcends genre barriers, and today’s is no exception. However, rather than talk about a single album, I’m going to discuss a whole band – the criminally underrated Gridlock.

Formed in 1994 and signed to Pendragon Records in 1997, Gridlock were originally compared to the darker electronic industrial bands such as Skinny Puppy, but there were elements to their sound that weren’t typically found in industrial, particularly their ambience and lack of vocals. ‘The Synthetic Form,’ their first major release, is considered by many – myself included – to be one of the darkest, creepiest albums the genre has ever produced. More psychological fear than the ‘batter you with noise’ approach that many other bands of this genre take, ‘The Synthetic Form’ is the perfect accompaniment to a good horror novel – I listened to it on constant repeat while reading Mark Z. Danielewski’s ‘House of Leaves’ and to say that was an unsettling experience isn’t doing either of these pieces justice. Here’s ‘Frantic’ to give you a hint what it was like.

Then came ‘Further’ – as its name suggests, it took the blueprint of ‘Synthetic’ further, particularly in the ambient direction. Featuring even fewer vocals than its predecessor, ‘Further’ pushed the ambient soundscapes more to the front, but still kept the harsh percussion of its predecessor, giving a sound like dreams being punctuated by nightmares. Considered by many to be their classic album, ‘Further’ is easily their most accessible piece and retrospectively shows where they had come from and also where they were going.

Here’s ‘Sever’ – it’s awesome and you should listen.

The ambient and proto-IDM sounds found on these early albums proved to be the foundations on which their final two main albums (there were live records and a ‘Rare, Live and Remixed’ album entitled ‘5.25’ in the mean time) would be laid. Released in 2001, ‘Trace’ was their first ambient/ IDM album, and pushed the soundscape elements completely to the fore, removing all vocals, save for a brief interlude on ‘Voiceless.’ Rather than the dark, creepy atmosphere of their first two releases, ‘Trace’ is a much lighter sounding record and while the percussion is still present, it’s nowhere near as prominent or distorted as previously, and this sound proved to be the same blueprint for their final release ‘Formless’ in 2003.

This is 364:277 from ‘Trace’

And finally, we’ve got ‘Chrometaphor’ from ‘Formless.’

Though they never got the exposure they deserved, I was and remain a huge Gridlock fan and can see their influence, particularly of their later releases, on the modern IDM scene, such as on Broken Fabiola’s latest release ‘Severed.’