Seattle was one of those places where people who wanted to play music in the mid-West just ended up. The Treepeople did, only to be swallowed up by the waves of "grunge". By the time the brothers Markel found their way there in 1994, grunge was officially over (if it ever existed at all), just in time to be swallowed up by the recession of "post-grunge".
The band the brothers formed, New Sweet Breath, was clearly not a "grunge" band by any means (but again, "grunge" never existed. Nirvana, Seaweed, and Mudhoney were punk bands. Pearl Jam was a rock band. Alice in Chains and Soundgarden were metal bands. Furthermore, none of them sounded similar whatsoever. The only commonality was that they didn't sound like Warrant or Ratt. But that's a whole other story.). New Sweet Breath's songs were comprised of complex arrangements that included lo-fi indie guitars, hardcore punk blasts, mellow atmospheric rock, and smooth pop melodies often juxtaposed in the same song. This made them simply one of the best bands of the 90's that, unfortunately, most people are unaware of.
In the wake of indie and emo exploding, one can only wonder what this band before their time would have been had they been around five years later. Alas, we shall never know.
Although the world has been robbed of the genius that was this band, at least Graig is still out there, making wonderful music... albeit significantly less... eh... loud. I, however, still hold out hope that one day, we shall see Graig rediscover his distortion pedal.
