Have one to sell? Sell yours here
Sorry, this item is not available in
Image not available for
Colour:
Image not available

 
Share your own customer images

Unholy

Martin Grech | Format: Audio CD
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)

Available from these sellers.


Amazon's Martin Grech Store

›
Visit Amazon's Martin Grech Store
for all the music, discussions, and more.

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Product details

  • Audio CD (13 Jun 2005)
  • Number of Discs: 1
  • Label: Universal / Island
  • ASIN: B0009JOPBC
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 54,930 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

    •  Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
1. Guiltless
2. Venus
3. Erosion And Regeneration
4. I Am Chromosome
5. An End
6. Holy Father Inferior
7. Worldly Divine
8. Lint
9. Elixir

Product Description

Product Description

Few push rock music into the realms of the personally-conceived art form. Few apart from a disarmingly striking 22 year old from Aylesbury with chipped black nail varnish and a careening falsetto. Grech's music is a dark, disorientating landscape, as informed by surrealist artists H.R. Giger and Joel Peter Witkin as Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead.

Customer Reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
11 reviews
4.5 out of 5 stars
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars And nothing less than... 29 July 2005
By Elliot Davies
Format:Audio CD
Albums like this NEED five star reviews, otherwise, well, it's like a personal insult to music itself. Calling this any less than a classic is a crime. If Trent Reznor were to have a love child with Thom Yorke and Jeff Buckley, and if this child were to collaborate with Godspeed You! Black Emperor to perform the latter half of Sigur Ros's ( ), chances are it would sound like this. This is dark, dark music. Music to soundtrack a slow descent into a very personal hell, the only escape being a treacherous pathway constructed from the ruins of desecrated churches and cathedrals guarded by bipedal cyborgs of death.

"Guiltless" is as unnerving an opener as you'll ever hear: Ominous bass, drums that threaten to explode at any minute, strings that can only be descrived as evil, upsetting electronics and demonic whispered vocals. I'm tempted to call "I Am Chromosone" this album's "Dali", in that it's an industrial tour de force of epic proportions with ambient interludes. However, it is so much more. Whilst "Dali" is an explosion of energy, "Chromosone" is a veritable supernova. The coda in which Martin screams "Revolt" to an accompaniment of music that could effectively reduce even the most hardened of metal fans into a pile of quivering jelly is unforgettable.

Grech succeeds in mentality, yet he is an absolute master of the calmer sound. "Lint" is a moment of true beauty, so faint it's almost inaudible, so powerful it's unforgettable. "Venus" is almost pastoral, perhaps one of the most beautiful love songs ever penned. "Erosion and Regeneration" is genuinely scary, in which Martin recites a spell/prayer over a brooding backdrop.

Look at the adjectives I've used! I've had to use a thesaurus to describe this album. That alone is a reccommendation, words almost failed me. Put simply, this album is "not like other albums". It's bigger, bolder, better and will stand the test of time longer than anything else that could possibly be released this year.

1 Comment | 
Was this review helpful to you?
Yes
No
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars listened to it for 6 monnths now and.... 2 Jan 2006
By B. Shamsuddin
Format:Audio CD
it continues to mesmerise me. If you're bored of everything you hear, and long for something with more mystery, depth, anguish, and feeling, then buy this.
This album is something for true music lovers, rather than followers of (musical) fashion. It ought to appeal to those who like Classical, Baroque, Orchestral & Choral Music, as much as those who are into Industrial, Metal, Rock, & Indie. There is no Genre it fits into, the Music on this little cd is Overblown & Understated, Wild & Restrained, it has moment of sheer pomposity as well as breathy minimalism.

The combination of a range of unusual instrumentation, rhythms, timbres, and the unnerving qualities of Grech's voice are combined in an utterly beautiful manner.

Comment | 
Was this review helpful to you?
Yes
No
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars A long way from radio-friendly unit shifter land 9 Aug 2007
By C. O'Brien VINE™ VOICE
Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase
After his under-recognised debut Open Heart Zoo and three years away tussling with "legal problems", alt-metal wunderkind Martin Grech could have been forgiven for edging further towards the rock mainstream. Hell, it revived the fortunes of maverick innovators Cornell, Reznor and Keenan, whose long shadows run right through Grech's work like the words in a stick of Brighton rock.

Sophomore effort Unholy is a long way from radio-friendly unit shifter land, though. Opener Guiltless drops the soaring choral melodies of Open Heart Zoo for a cracked, thirsting whisper which threaten to close in on the listener like a cage. And just when you think you've got the thing pegged as standard gothic angst, in comes a meltingly beautiful, aching love song called Venus, as smooth, lyrical and...well, lubricated as music ever gets. Mr Grech has plainly fallen in love of late, and far from taking him down the road to romantic cliché, raw emotion shows on every song. For every angsty bellow about "prisons of duality" and "heads on a plate", there's lushness and lust so strong and universal it overturns all notions of genre.

This is an unhurried album. For all its strange melodic strength, there are passages which are happy to meander off into swirling atonal soundscapes that at times recall medieval plainsong. I Am Chromosome is old metal mingled with deconstructed Johnny Greenwood-esque experimentation as Grech imagines himself metamorphosing into a tree; elsewhere there are whispered fragments of poetry, spooky voiceovers, choirboys, unearthly screams.

The high point might be Worldly Divine, a sinister 6/8 bear-stomp which recalls the glories of goth pioneers the Banshees, but Unholy sees Martin Grech beginning to take leave of all his influences. Too visceral to be called prog, too tender to be called gothic, too wild for the mainstream, this is the sound of an original talent taking flight.
Comment | 
Was this review helpful to you?
Yes
No
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?   Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars As dark and intense as it gets
Martin Grech is one of the underrated music artists of our generation. He possesses one of the most powerful voices around and he really pushes the boundries of music, something... Read more
Published 9 months ago by C22man
4.0 out of 5 stars Not as good as openheartzoo
Very good, buy it if you're a fan, but not as good as openheartzoo in my opinion.
Published on 4 Dec 2009 by deus1066
1.0 out of 5 stars depressing
Ok, this may seem like a harsh review, but I need to balance the raving reviews everyone else has given it, because theyre what encouraged me buy it! Read more
Published on 22 Oct 2007 by Mr. R. J. Taylor
5.0 out of 5 stars Atlast some descent music for 2000
For a while i had given up on new artists and bands just pushing them aside as many of them are no good, just many have so much advertising its hard to try and miss them anyway,... Read more
Published on 12 Feb 2006 by A. Anjam
5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful
It's hard for some artists to top their first album but Martin Grech's Unholy does. It's an album that at times is harsh and at times sad and cold. Read more
Published on 17 Nov 2005 by Mr. A. J. Miles
5.0 out of 5 stars Stunning
Simply stunning
Published on 17 Aug 2005
5.0 out of 5 stars i agree
absolutely. you have to see this man live to appreciate him fully. has the most gorgeously innocent voice and attempts so many styles with huge success from complex apocoliptic... Read more
Published on 13 Jun 2005 by paul
5.0 out of 5 stars Go see the man live if you can!
Having owned the first album (Open Heart Zoo) since it was released in 2002 I have considered myself a fan of Grech. Read more
Published on 10 Jun 2005 by R. E. James
Search Customer Reviews
Only search this product's reviews

There's a problem loading this menu at the moment.

Learn more about Amazon Prime.

    Your Shopping Basket is empty.

    Give it purpose -- fill it with books, DVDs, clothes, electronics and more.

    If you already have an account, sign in.

    There's a problem previewing your shopping basket at the moment.

    Check your Internet connection and go to your cart, or try again.

    View Shopping Basket (0 items)

      Customer Discussions

      This product's forum
      Discussion Replies Latest Post
      No discussions yet

      Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
      Start a new discussion
      Topic:
      First post:
      Prompts for sign-in
       


      Active discussions in related forums
      Search Customer Discussions
      Search all Amazon discussions
         
      Related forums

      What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?

      › Explore similar items

      Listmania!

      Create a Listmania! list

      Look for similar items by category

      Feedback