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Customer Reviews
The album invites the listener to join Woolly in the dark and mysterious northern town of Grimroyd, where a variety of circumstances and characters are encountered. The brilliant "Through a storm" is gutsy, powerful, classicesque rock, in which some brilliant drumming lifts the song between sorrowful reflection at the past and anger at the present. Other stand-out moments include the beautiful Hebden Bridge, the tender but barbed "Love Is", the medaeival-ish "Harp and Carp" and the ludicrous insanity of "The Iceman Cometh". Beware of those icecream men!
Woolly was responsible for many of the most creative and unusual sounds that BJH produced during their first decade. His departure lead the Barclay's down a more commercially successful but yet increasingly artistically bland direction. Woolly may not own the name "BJH" but its authentic original spirit lives on here.
Even a cursory listen to GRIM will reveal why Wolstenholme was too restricted by the demands of a band with three songwriters. Mucially GRIM is nicely complex in that the clever arrangements are not overtly 'in your face' - but become apparent if you try and sing along, or harmonise. Rumour has it that some of the complex rhythms make would-be air-drummers look very silly. But ahem, er, I wouldn't know obviously!
GRIM is compelling. The best thing about this CD however, is that in an age of mass-processed musical junk-food where indistinguishableness is the watchword, GRIM is utterly unique!
I always have a problem defining musical styles. Maestoso are billed as a "progressive rock" band. I prefer to think of their music as "pastoral symphonic rock". The sound and feel are very "English" and remind me of the early BJH album "BJH and Other Short Stories". Woolly's never been one for keyboard histrionics, preferring the always-tasteful and appropriate selection of Mellotron or other keyboard sounds to provide the symphonic thread that helps give these diverse songs a cohesive album feel.
Whilst Woolly is the dominating influence on "Grim", this is very much a band album, with Steve Broomhead (guitars) and Kim Turner (drums) contributing to writing material. Steve and Kim have worked with Woolly before, contributing to his excellent "solo" album (entitled "Maestoso", like this band's name) in the early 80s. They are joined here by Craig Fletcher on bass to complete the Maestoso band. I particularly like the interplay between Steve's guitar work and Woolly's keyboard sounds. The rhythm section of Craig and Kim works well too.
Woolly's singing sounds a little strained on a couple of occasions, such as on "That's the Price You Pay", but it never detracts from the excellence of the songs or of the album. My favourites (at the moment!) are the wonderful "Through a Storm"; "A Lark"; " Hebden Bridge"; the up-tempo "Location Location Location"; the spooky "Iceman Cometh" and the gorgeous duet with Susanna d'Arcy, "Pas de Deux" (where the lyrics belie the beautiful music - that`s Woolly`s humour for you!).
On this form, Woolly has much to contribute both to Maestoso and to John Lees's BJH, with whom he is touring in November 2006. He is currently busy writing new material so we can expect to hear more from Maestoso in the near future.
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