Any genre that spends enough time out of the limelight is guaranteed to earn a few new followers through the sheer force of nostalgia. Still, out of the styles of music that earned the peak of their popularity decades ago, perhaps none deserves reappraisal and an accruing of new talent quite like grunge, the rage-filled, guitar-driven sound of the early 1990s that originated in Seattle, U.S.A.
The fact is that, of all the rock styles (and there were plenty) that made unto the charts during that period, none managed to create an angrier sound more suited for rock radio. How come? It might’ve been the fact that the majority of these bands, as emotionally driven as they were, had built their repertoire of riffs and distorted vocals from listening to 1970s classic rock. These are influences, surely, that modern grunge band Greywater must also be familiar with.
There’s also the fact that, unlike some of its contemporaries, the sound of these groups was formed in tight little garages and on the small stages of clubs, not in fancy studios by producers looking to extract the most amount of grit out of the sound. Grunge music always had an organic feel to it.
With this in mind, and with lessons from bands like (early) Stone Temple Pilots well digested, Greywater create a riff-heavy, confrontational modern grunge sound with “Rot.” And while the song has acquired fist-punching potential, of course, the band’s music is best appreciated upon repeated listens. Only after those, you’ll come to appreciate the band’s reliance on grooves and on real dynamics, the sort of which are often missing from modern, heavy music. Greywater isn’t trying to bring grunge back, but adding to an important chapter in the history of rock music.
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