GIANT SQUID (Recording new album with Matt Bayles)

Music:

Member Since: 3/12/2005
Band Website: giantsquidlives.com
Band Members:

Active Members:

Aaron Gregory (guitar, vocals, keyboards, html, healing factor)

Jackie Perez Gratz (vocals, cello, camaro, pants)

Bryan Beeson (bass, beard, leveling up)

Chris Lyman (drums, smiles, raw water intake)
Previous Members:

Sutter's Fort split 7" directly from The End Records, here."

Metridium Fields directly from The End Records, here."

All things with down tuned strings. Creatures with gills, though vertebrae are not necessary. Monterey Bay Aquarium. Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni. Symbiotic relationships. Tectonic shift. El Niño. Paleoichthyology. Cryptozoology. Anadromous leviathans. The Internationl Shark Attack Files. Aquatic animal echolocation. Shark Week. Liars, lovers, and the few things between. Subhumans records. Albums engineered by Billy Anderson and Matt Bayles. Coffee and whiskey.

Any fan of artistically intelligent and organically heavy indie/stoner/post-rock and ambient metal music, in the vein of Amber Asylum, Isis, Grayceon, Pleasure Forever, Black Heart Procession, God Speed You Black Emperor, Agalloch, Torche, Intronaut, Mono, Boris, Sunn0))), Unsane, Tarantula Hawk, Bongzilla, Earth, My Bloody Valentine, Goblin, Om, Minsk, Pelican, Mogwai, Neurosis, Tarental, Blonde Redhead, Unwound, Melvins, Sleep, High on Fire, Tone, Grails, Acid King, Zombi, avant-gard/progressive rock and metal such as Sleepy Time Gorilla Museum, Priest Bird, Secret Chiefs 3, and Estradasphere, classic rock like Black Sabbath, Rush, The Doors and Pink Floyd, as well as progressive punk the likes of Subhumans, Citizen Fish and Dead Kennedys, should appreciate Giant Squid's worship of guitar overdrive, raw attack balanced with deliberate dynamics, barbed song writing, somber interludes, pretty guitar amps, and tide-like build ups.

"Finally, a post-everything band that actually meets and sometimes surpasses their insta-cool laundry list of influences." - Decibel Magazine

"Monstrously penetrating, conceptually abstract, doomingly essential." - Thrasher Magazine

"The amalgamation of musical genres that Giant Squid presents before us, are tightly orchestrated and interwoven together in such a way that it will take several listens to fully understand how complex the music really is." - Zero Magazine

"...hauntingly heavy indie-rock..." - SURF Magazine

"Very few songs have ever fixated on the torture in my own heart with their frequencies." - heathenharvest.com

"EPIC It's the only word that can aptly describe the tremendous riffs and thunderous symphony that blends effortlessly with ethereal soundscapes to form the album, "Metridium Fields" - thehvscene.com

"Metridium Fields is breath of fresh air... another in a long-line of The End Records releases that kicks convention to the curb and over time reveals its hidden treasures to those patient enough to stick with it." - blabbermouth.net

"...grab a well-worn copy of Moby Dick, and lose yourself in Metridium Fields. It is simply fantastic by all definitions of the word." - decoymusic.com

"Let me introduce to you what may get my vote for best album of 2006. Metridium Fields is simply unbelievable." - criticalmetal.com

"After the first spin of Metridium Fields, its become increasingly clear that Giant Squid are the new champions of ambient doom." - metalcityzine.com

"I really find it hard to believe you've ever heard another band that sounds like Giant Squid." - musicstreetjournal.com

"Though certainly falling under the doom/sludge/ambient umbrella of the likes of Isis, Neurosis, Pelican and Mogwai, as youd expect from a band on The End, Giant Squid take the paradigms of a known genre and turn it upside down." - digitalmetal.com

"Each of the six songs is like a tentacle. It probes. Caresses. Latches on. Strangles. Pulls you further in to the darkness." - deadtide.com

"Dark, potent and mysterious, there'll be little else like Metridium Fields this year." - chartattack.com

"A very good opus of modern American doom showing a creative musical approach." - 666metal.com

"Giant Squid is one part heartbreak equaled with one part aggression. This is a must have for anyone that loves music." - Absolute Media

"Metridium Fields is a strong contender that will most likely be a sleeper hit, though it deserves much, much more." - Ultimate Metal

"The hardest thing here is for me to describe Giant Squid's unique sound. I mean, there are so many different genres and even when the sounds are in unison, the band can orchestrate it into something that will blur the lines of numerous genres. Anyway, I can best describe their sound as mountain of gloom and doom rock with perfectly placed keyboards swirled together with an eclectic mix of down tuned guitars with leviathan-ish riffs and saturated bass lines that are used as a wrecking ball to smash through the glassy atmosphere set around the music." - blackangelpromotions.com

"Hypnotic in repetition, reverberant in texture, and rich with a resonance like the sounds of a bitter celebration, the music sounds despondent as well as rather exultant." - metalreview.com

"Part epic, part weapon, this doom rock act takes its guitar tones as seriously as they do their song structure." - wrankmusic.com

"Think Radiohead meets Neurosis meets Jefferson Airplane meets Pink Floyd meets Black Sabbath meets Renaissance. Sort of. Giant Squid goes from crushing stoner grooves to 70's inspired prog rock to psychedelic spaciness with the quickest of ease... Giant Squid's Metridium Fields is a monster release, plain and simple. Gauranteed to appeal to both metal heads and proggers, this is one of the more refreshing releases to come along in a long time. Expect big things from this mighty creature." - Seaoftranquility.org

"Heavy and down-tuned but with a strong sense of melody, Metridium Fields is a diverse conglomeration of sounds." - Dialy Vanguard

"...the fact that the band is this brave and this different with their debut points to good things in the future." - undergroundreview.com

"It is an album of introspective, trippy music that languidly leads the listener into chaos and bliss at the same time. Although dont let the slowness and length of the songs fool you, this is not some hippy jam band, the songs are very dark and heavy with a definite doom influence." - The Gauntlet

"If your into Neurosis, beard growing contests, whaling, heavy barbituate use, being sad, being a caveman, Satan or cephlapods, you should probably check this one out." - Misprint Magazine

"It all seems so odd and absurd to bend the laws of musical genre characteristics and specifics, but Giant Squid have taken the challenge and opened a few new doors with their well considered and engaging songwriting skills." - Worm Gear Zine

"The "post-rock" album of the year from a metal band." - Prefix Magazine

"If, at a glance, Giant Squid appears as the latest cephalopod to squirm onto the crowded NeurIsis bandwagon, a listen will refute such facile overdetermination." - popmatters.com

"I can tag this band as being one to certainly follow and look forward to future releases as they have potential to being a leading light in the growing family of Neurosis-inspired bands." - Encyclopedia Mettalum

"The second track "Neonate" is one of the strongest songs released all year from a debuting band, a trance-inducing mix of "Red Sea" era ISIS and the more cryptic moments of SYSTEM OF A DOWN." - metaleater.com

"It's no exaggeration that no other band sounds like Giant Squid." - Stylus Magazine

"You could not fully seize the beauty of Giant Squid’s music if it wasn’t so repetitive, so cyclic. I won’t say more. I shouldn’t really: we’ve reached a point where words are not enough for an in depth analysis. But don’t get mistaken, this album is colossal, and it is essential for every true music fan. " - riseandrevolt.com

"While this album is heavy, it's not overwhelmingly crushing to the point of distraction. This allows for total absorption. This is a great album to just sit down and listen to. If you buy this album, take time out of your day to take it all in." - suburbanhorror.com

"Doomy, gloomy, but elegant." - The Austin Chronicle

"Metridium Fields is one of the most intriguing releases that I have encountered this year. With so many artists writing music within the confines of what is considered normal, it is rare to find a band willing to experiment and push the boundaries of music. Giant Squid do not fear what lies on the other side, and I for one am glad." - scenepointblank.com

"...for all the indie metal tags being thrown around, more than anything else it sounds like a dreamy, doomy early-'70s hard rock effort, as if Jefferson Airplane took songs like "Somebody to Love" to a darker place." - allmusic.com

Acclaim for Metridium Field, the self released version on Tyrannosaurus Records, 2004:

"One of the ten best bands you have never heard of." - Diamonds in the rough, decoymusic.com

"... Giant Squid is anything but another boring Neurosis ripoff. The band intertwines folk elements, along with classical composition chops and a strange sense of melody, to its bass-heavy atmospheric doom. This is an album truly deserving of the word "epic" and their tales of seamen gone astray rival anything Mastodon or Book of Knots put out in their concept albums. It's just damned good and I wish I'd found them sooner." - decoymusic.com

"Fans of Ufomammut, Neurosis, Pleasure Forever and The Swans should be elated. Self calling fans of music should better listen this album covers all bases in such an immaculate way that it would be a crying shame if it went down unnoticed." - Monolith.gr, A doom and heavy rock asylum.

"Heavy riffs are layered with dreamy synths, moving from uptempo metallic dreampop with angelic male and female vocal harmonies, to slow doomy dirges, to heavy post-metal majesty, to deranged black metal weirdness. Very cool! It all ties together well, and the delicate synth breaks are awesome, sounding like BLACK HEART PROCESSION or PLEASURE FOREVER emerging from a one of ISIS' crushing dirges." - Crucial Blast

"They certainly defy the rules of conventionality. Theres a vague similarity to Isis, but both the Eastern European and Middle Eastern stylings to Giant Squid make them their own species. Its ambient art doom, filled with moody passages and accentuated by the tasteful use of keyboards and the three distinct vocalists Metridium Field is more a tapestry than an album, creating a feeling of quiet desperation." - stonerrock.com

INTERVIEWS:

Insite Magazine, Austin

Austin Statesman

Sea of Tranquility

Rebel Extravaganza