Grand Island

Two brothers have spent the most of their lifetime plucking strings and hammering pianos and beatup drums in the ways of mountain music and deltablues. As Grand Island sprouted three more musicians after the brothers returned from overseas, they grew tired of the limitations in the Appalachian music legacy. And so more and more of the deliciously eccentric sides of music appeared as the bands sound grew from straight ahead amerigrass to a tight, energetic and dirty hybrid in the mesh made from hardsoul-bluegrass-disco, hardcore and rocknroll; southern indie. Sulphur vocals, heavy organs, banjo fingers from 76, desert bass and big city drums. Its a joyous, uncompromising melodic rhythm-galore, with two brothers on skins and bass and two brothers in front on strings and wails, with one fifth of keys on the side. The band has one foot in west coast glamorama and the other in Georgia, with its head pushed down in the sand of 29 Palms, one arm from Motor City, Appalachian revival-folk and gospel. Sin songs and sin-alongs.
Grand Island released their debut-album ’Say no to sin’ in 2006, and the album was nothing less than a summer storm of a record, or a mountain dam cracking open perhaps.
’Amiss are norms, order and respect for expectations. Loath of narrative logic, temperance and a structure of recognition, Grand Island’s dual pair of brothers -with an unrelated fifth member constituting the genetic freak- pour into the cauldron of their music frantic banjos, jungle beats and primal veils, blood-line precision, crystal-meth energy and general hysteria.
The songs are not symmetrical and rounded entities, nay, they are more reminiscent of the path of a drugged, or inbred, mind, leaping ever-on never back. They are complex, fragmented and most of all frantic sequences of music. Like caustic soda and milk, the true mountain dew, Grand Island is not something to hold on to: you must go along and pick up the speed as it gathers, and then, when the chorus sets in, everything lifts like a vast flock of birds. The choruses tend to be catchy beyond imagination (“sin-song, sin-along” as they aptly put it themselves) and constitute some kind of recurring comment on the madness, or a promise: “there is always a party near for those who dare!” (mic.no)’
After three European tours, performances at larger festivals on the continent as well as invitations to South by Southwest and Eurosonic, nominations for Spellemann- (Norwegian Grammy) and Alarmawards, Grand Island is finally back.
With the critically acclaimed debut-album ’Say no to sin’ in the trunk, the band has spent the last year on the road and in studio to record their second album. Sweet and tears has been left behind, and blood has been spilt. Cars crashed and bridges burned. All so that the band with pride and humility can present “Boys & Brutes”, an album for those that wish to cry, dance or fight.
The album is recorded and mixed in the famous Propeller studios with Mike Hartung (A-ha, Shining, Satyricon, JR Ewing and more) as producer. The album is mastered in Los Angeles by Dave Collins (Queens of the stone age, Madonna, Black Sabbath, Sting, and more.)
The music of Grand Island can be described as an unrelenting mix of pumping string-handling, subtle yet insanely shifts in tempo, mood and intensity. The band has on the new album worked hard to keep their originality and trademarks, but at the same time sought to expand their musical expression in a more melodic, manifoldly and dynamic direction. In short, it is very much Grand Island, but with a further dimension.
Grand Island is planning a Norwegian tour in April followed by a European tour in May as well as selected festivals through-out northern Europe.
“There are two choices; you either love them to pieces or you want to bust their heads from confusion”

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