Nana Grizol - Love it, Love it

Orange Twin
(OTR030-1: 708527680490/OTR030-2: 656605663029)
Release date: 5/23/2008
Genre: Indie Rock, Folk

$19.80

Less of a band than an exuberant orbit of bright weird planets circling the joyful kinesis of main-songster Theo Hilton, Nana Grizol's debut album "Love It Love It" sees release on Orange Twin on May 13, 2008. Recorded in their hometown of Athens Georgia directly after a month-long tour of DIY spaces across the States, this record finds the band brimming with energy and rightly well-honed where live performance is concerned; "Love It Love It" sacrifices none of the band's beloved, sweat-stained essence.

The crew augments Theo's book-open vocals and beautiful fingerpicking with a suitably eclectic array of instrumentation. Laura Carter and Robbie Cucchiaro, both formerly of Athens' legendary and notoriously horn-buoyed Neutral Milk Hotel, head up a brass-and-winds section comprised of Laura's celebratory trumpet, Robbie's Baritone Euphonium, a couple clarinets, harmonica, recorder and whatever else you can pack into a touring-trunk and bring along for a blast. Rhythmic backbone comes courtesy of Southern punk rock siren Madeline Adams' bass, Matte Cathcart's drumming and some right-on Fender Rhodes piano provided by Hot New Mexicans' mainman Patrick Jennings.

The catchy, heartfelt crunch of the album's opener, "Circles Round The Moon," segues seamlessly into the brassy, beautiful circus-lullaby, "Tambourine-n-Thyme." Things get sad and stripped down with "Tiny Rainbows" -- a gentle plaint nudged toward the light by the brilliant horns. And "Broken Cityscapes" gets positively naked: Theo's adamant vocal sounds above his acoustic guitar and a couple rattles.

Theo's lyrical voice is ruralist, lovelorn and punk rock in the most primal way: he looks to explicate a world gone way wrong on the most basic, inhumane levels. Experiences gained on the touring road and at his home at the Orange Twin Conservation Community have led him to question the empty life of the modern American, and the disquieting ways the inherent Dystopia have made itself manifest on our own interior landscapes.

1. Circles 'Round the Moon
2. Tambourine-N-Thyme
3. Less Than The Air
4. Motion In the Ocean
5. Voices Echo Down the Halls (For Jared)
6. Stop and Smell the Roses
7. Tiny Rainbows
8. Will We
9. Everything You Ever Hoped or Worked For
10. Broken Cityscapes
11. The Idea that Everything could Possibly Ever be Said (For Patrick)