I have an unorthodox approach to picking albums to review: I look at the list and pick the best name. So far I am 50/50 on getting an album that isn't either weird, horrible, boring, or formulaic.

So for this review, I decided to just ask the editor what she wanted. Best possible move right? If I cannot be consistent on just blindly choosing a cool sounding name then I will put my faith in the hands of others… oh boy.

Grails makes instrumental, almost cinematic score type music. As we all know (because if you're reading this website you probably fancy yourself an intellectual of music), listening to a score is at times very laborious. The music works great when a movie is playing over it but alone you really are left to your own devices. Deep Politics is an album that would be a perfect score, but when left standing on its own is a chore.

It's not that the album is horrible; the band (made up of former Laurel Canyon members Alex Hall, Emil Amos and Paul Spitz, with Timothy Horner and Bill Slater recruited along for this project) excels at creating a mood with their work. The album is chock full of ominous sounds, low tuned piano that makes everything sound a bit menacing, and little sound effects that would surely suggest that danger is afoot. "All the Colors of the Dark" is an Ennio Morricone tribute that sounds so much like his work that I am forever checking to see if this isn't a cover. It's a lot of Spaghetti Western sounds on one side and some creeping doom on the other, which again, is totally fine as a score but when left alone, it is such a work to get through.

Emotion is something that music seems to be the easiest delivery system for. Someone could string together a few notes and if it sounds honest and it's done right, you will feel what the person is trying to convey. On Deep Politics, the band tries to convey an emotion, but the music as a whole is so over — over thought, over produced, over labored and over done. When the band goes into "Corridors of Power", a pretty little tune, the pan flute of all things makes a cameo and in this instance it sounds refreshing in contrast to the constant sound of two gunmen meeting at dawn that the rest of the album draws upon.

In short, Deep Politics is fine, but it all depends on how you want to view it. As an exercise in music it scores high because everyone playing is competent and rehearsed. As a casual listener you're never going to buy this because it does nothing for you; its like looking through a window and seeing someone else feel feelings. As a music critic (ahem), you hear the album and it sounds like studio musicians playing something someone else composed, note for note. Sure it sounds accurate and well arranged, but does that mean it's truly good?

Track List:

01. Future Primitive

02. All The Colors Of The Dark

03. Corridors Of Power

04. Deep Politics

05. Daughters Of Bilitis

06. Almost Grew My Hair

07. I Led Three Lives

08. Deep Snow