Track By Tracks: Greber - Fright Without (2022)

1.Form:

This is definitely the flagship song. Musically it’s all over the fucking place and was definitely one of the weirder compositions on the record. So weird that we were like: “yup, let’s open the record with this one” after it had been suggested. Might as well dive right in and get it out of the way. Lyrically it encompasses the vibe of the album by smearing our mortal selves into an obscure medium and letting nature take its course. The transcendence of trash and the might of recklessness was the line I had written when I started writing it. A line that doesn’t appear in the song. Hmmm.

2. Aging Debt:

Don’t let the title fool you. We are still completely insolvent from our past musical endeavors. Oh, wait. This was the first one that we had in the can of the group. A dirty diaper of a tune. Grabbing everything that wished we hadn’t let go. Lyrically it’s a collective angry letter to our childhood selves. Outlining the Karen-eque maladies that can drown everything else out if allowed to do so.

3. Fabricated Purpose:

Honestly, this is my best attempt at Masakari worship. The beginning hits the mark but invariably comes off the rails towards the end. The end needed something special and we’ve always been huge fans of all that is Kevin Keegan. He was kind enough to lend his golden voice to the track and we couldn’t possibly be more chuffed. When I sent Kurt the song he asked if it was Danko Jones on that part. I told him wasn’t but was stoked that he knew who Danko was. The outro has some atmospheric drones courtesy of Sean Pearson.

4. Into Silence:

This song is well above either of our abilities playing wise so I’m sure we’ll never rock it live, thank Christ. Just a blasting of riffs and drums and pain. Nice. As far as a lyrical theme goes it’s just a portrait scaling the finer points of dissociation. Steve is just full-on, triple E, BEEEST mode on this number.

5. Bush Cord of Entrails:

This one we wrote mostly at our jam hall. Just a nice raging slab of Neanderthal-fuelled numbskullery. Bush Cord is a song about missing someone who’s left you and harkening back to the memories that you’ve shared together and expressing them in a less than healthy way.

6.Larkinitis:

Another bit of a weird one. Larkinitis was written fairly quickly and felt like a great way to end the first side of the vinyl or be right in the middle of the CD or digital version. A little breath of sorts. There’s a little bit of guitar in this one so fucking shame on us for that I suppose. Luckily it was mostly played by our good friend Mathieu Vilandre. The dude is a talent powerhouse and I miss hanging out with him dearly. Ironically, the song is about a French Canadian animator named Daniel Larkin. Vil showed me a video that is based on his life. I won’t spoil any more.

7. Dark Corners:

The full title for this was Darker Corners of the Ridiculous Canadian Experiment but the FATCATS over at no funeral demanded that we shorten it to entice a wider audience. We taking selling out seriously so, naturally, we folded like a cheap suit. Essentially this is a song about people in power, wherever they are, whomever they seem to gravitate towards being water-head goons and I’m never quite sure why that is.

8. Rats of Subversion:

We put this one together pretty early on in the writing stage. It got played live for a while too. Just a slow and sludgy beer spiller of a tune. The stripped-down premise of this one is: “Lies in. Lies out”. Play around with the truth and eventually, you get some sort of infestation that you’d wished you’d avoided. No such luck. Bam. Rats.

9. Nosebleed:

As well, this one is a bit all over the place. Maybe TOO all over the place perhaps. We dig it nonetheless. Topically....and orally....this one is just a reckoning with the fact that we are all closer to death than we can ever imagine. Either that or further than we can imagine. The nug of bullshit that I’m getting at is that few people are ever aware of the fact that they are doing something for the last time. The last time is just the last time and then whatever it is you were doing, ends. Life. Your car. Your hair. Your friends. Just love the shit out of as much as you can throughout the current nightmare you’re experiencing. There I go pontificating again.

10. Tree Carving:

As Robert MeKee proclaimed in Charlie Kaufman’s “Adaptation” - “Wow them in the end, and you got a hit. You can have flaws, and problems, but wow them in the end, and you've got a hit.”

Well, hopefully, the listener is wowed with this short rager of a song and this record is a SMASH HIT.

Lyrically it’s a trifecta of three paths with four souls hosting many regrets and no foreseeable way to undo it all.