• A Grave With No Name – Passover

    January 18, 2018 - By 

    Death has always been and always will be a rich and necessary well for songwriters. Think back to the likes of Neil Young on Tonight’s The Night, Warren Zevon’s The Wind or, recently, Mount Eerie’s sublime A Crow Looked At Me. The finality of shuffling off the mortal coil can really bring out the best work from an artist. They’ve got a single shot to say goodbye correctly and if they’re slightly off then a well-intentioned farewell can become as unbearable as Puff Daddy’s ‘I’ll Be Missing You’. Writing about the passing of a life offers such a vast treasure…

  • A Grave With No Name – Wooden Mask

    August 15, 2016 - By 

    When the first guitar strum on ‘Sword’, the opening track on A Grave With No Name’s latest LP Wooden Mask, cuts through the atmospheric clinking and clattering, it’s clear that we’re in Phil Elverum territory. Alexander Shields, the man behind the Grave moniker, has his sights firmly set on picking up from where The Microphones’ The Gloaming, Part 2 left off. Shields’ output is based on these eerie slices of folk music infused with ambient whispers and these twinges of aggressive, electric and electronic instruments creeping around the edges of the aural plain. Although it never manages to invigorate or…