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Back in November 2022 I reviewed the Polarchoral album by Grice. In that piece, I noted that Grice is not backed by a big promoter and doesn’t do a lot of self-promotion. The implication was that this artist deserves more attention than you might think from the sparse mentions in the media. His marketing team may be small, but they did reach out to me shortly before his Mordant Lake album was released on 5th July, and I had intended to submit it to the Crotchety Assessment Panel straight away. Then life intervened.

Nothing especially dramatic happened here at Crotchety Mansions, it was just that all the various organisations I’m involved with were feeding my in-tray at the same time. It felt as though I was dashing around trying to keep too many plates spinning. While my attention was focussed elsewhere, the new album was released and the opportunity to bolster the promotional effort was lost. So, I apologise to Maria Peters for dropping the plate labelled ‘Grice – Mordant Lake’. I hope this blog post goes some way to making up for that.

The earlier post highlighted the first-rate production on the Polarchoral album:

“The sounds are not layered like cake, they are spread across the sonic canvas like bold strokes of paint on a modern masterpiece.”

Crotchety Man review of Polarchoral

Mordant Lake stands out for the same reason. There are eight honest-to-goodness art-rock songs on the album, but it is the varied colours and textures in the sonic palette that really stand out. Is that a mandolin on the title track? Is the lower-register growl in Ghost Dance a bass guitar or a synthesiser? There’s organ and pedal steel guitar on Offer You; harmonica and chamber orchestra strings on Karl. Different sounds come and go in interesting ways, always adding to the experience, never getting in the way.

The lyrics are evocative at times:

“There’s fire in the clouds, silver in the rain.”

Silent Thunder (reprise)

With its gentle wash of electric guitar chords and vocals, that particular track reminds me of the folk/indie band, Turin Brakes.

Over all, then, Mordant Lake is a worthy successor to Polarchoral – radio friendly indie/art-rock songs from an accomplished singer-songwriter. Dive into it on your favourite streaming service. It’s nowhere near as astringent as the title suggests.