Toronto’s Greys are streaming a new track titled Fresh Hell via their Bandcamp. Take a listen via Bandcamp below.
Singer Shehzaad Jiwani says of the track, “I wrote the lyrics for this song after hearing about Jian Ghomeshi’s acquittal, and of Rob Ford’s death. There seemed to be a baffling amount of support and sympathy for these public figures who were, for lack of a better term, total pieces of shit. Ghomeshi’s verdict only seemed to reinforce institutional sexism and rape culture, while Ford receiving sort of a hero’s funeral completely ignored all of the ways he negatively affected my city and most of its residents by being a racist, homophobic misogynist. I imagined this Orwellian future where anyone who disagreed with the public opinion was violently assimilated, which I think matches the cyberpunk vibe of the song. Get me off this planet.”
Grey’s most recent LP, 2016’s ‘Outer Heaven‘ is out now via Carpark in the US and Buzz in Canada. ‘Outer Heaven’ delivers on the promises Greys made on 2015’s ‘Repulsion EP,’ placing the band in more spacious environments and letting them build upon their noise rock foundation by incorporating new textures and dynamics to temper their trademark onslaught of discordance, which was already perfected on their debut record, 2014’s ‘If Anything’. Where their formative material saw them paying homage to their heroes, the new album sees Greys making a concentrated effort to realize their own sound.
With their intense live show documented admirably on their previous releases, the four piece wanted to explore their more atmospheric side on ‘Outer Heaven’. Produced by longtime collaborator Mike Rocha at the hallowed Hotel 2 Tango studio in Montreal (Arcade Fire, Godspeed You! Black Emperor), the record displays unprecedented depth and range for Greys, calling to mind groups as disparate as Sonic Youth, Swell Maps and The Swirlies without ever losing sight of what defines the band – a distinct mixture of melody and dissonance, order and chaos, volume and substance.
Fresh off the road from a North American tour with White Lung, Greys will embark on another run of North American dates this fall (all tour dates below).
Tour dates
09/22 Madison, WI @ Frequency
10/12 Washington, DC @ Comet Ping Pong $
10/13 Brooklyn, NY @ Aviv $
10/14 Philadelphia, PA @ Kung Fu Necktie $
10/15 Montreal, QC @ Turbohaus #
10/16 Saint-Hyacinthe, QC @ Le Zaricot #
10/17 Quebec City, QC @ L’Anti #
10/19 Halifax, NS @ The Marquee *
10/20 Fredericton, NB @ The Capitol #
10/21 Ottawa, ON @ House Of TARG #
10/26 Toronto, ON @ Lee’s Palace *
10/30 Tallahassee, FL @ Club Downunder ^
10/31 Mobile, AL @ The Merry Widow ^
11/02 Oxford, MS @ Proud Larry’s ^
11/03 Memphis, TN @ Hi-Tone Cafe ^
11/04 Nashville, TN @ Drkmttr
11/05 Atlanta, GA @ 529
11/06 Richmond, VA @ Sound Of Music
* = w/ White Lung
^ = w/ Bully
$ = w/ Big Ups
# = w/ Partner
