Longstanding Berlin-based group Saline Grace has returned with another exceptional single that will unquestionably appeal to all the fans of post-punk sound. Bar Moon is a perfect continuation of The Whispering Woods, a critically acclaimed full-length album released this year. As usual, Saline Grace invested heart and soul into their music, and that’s the case with Bar Moon as well. Soundwise, no one blends post-punk with other complementary music genres like Saline Grace, so there’s always a feeling like this German duo shapeshifts the boundaries of this longevous music genre. Besides post-punk, you’ll notice heavy dosages of goth rock, shoegaze, indie rock, alternative, and dream pop, mixed up with the primary sonic direction to the max. Saline Grace takes only the best elements from the beforementioned styles, so their music always resonates with a calm, relaxing, soothing, nearly cathartic atmosphere. Bar Moon is more than solid proof of how post-punk could still sound fresh, unique, revolutionary, and entertaining. You’ll adore all the orchestrations Saline Grace invested into the Bar Moon. The mesmerizing chord progressions are a nice touch that define almost the entire composition. Thick layers of reverb, echo, and delay lurk above these chord progressions. Therefore, you’ll immediately notice that Bar Moon carries that irresistible eighties goth rock sound with a slightly modern twist. Of course, Bar Moon wouldn’t sound so massive without profoundly detailed basslines that give more density, definition, and clarity to the beforementioned guitar performance. Just like the remainder of the instrumentations included in this composition, the drumming performance also stands out with complex beats, various accentuations, breaks, fills, and other percussive acrobatics that define only the best post-punk/goth rock numbers. Bar Moon also wouldn’t sound this good without rich, gothy, baritone vocal harmonies that are probably the key signature of the Saline Grace. It’s nearly mindblowing how singing segments match with these orchestrations. You’ll also hear how psychedelic music inspired Saline Grace to write, compose, record, and produce such a mesmerizing track because there are some sonic maneuvers that might remind you of something psych-rock bands would eventually record. Still, Saline Grace resonates with a unique, fresh, unmatchable energy rarely seen in post-punk or goth rock bands nowadays. You should check out this song, whether you’re a fan of the genre or not. Bar Moon is available on all streaming platforms.

https://thoughtswordsaction.com/2023/04/04/saline-grace-bar-moon/

Saline Grace - The Whispering Woods

A journey without wind, rain, sand and hail cannot show the true face of places.

When music brings them into our eyes, then we can claim to at least feel their reality, to be part of them.

The Germans Saline Grace, with their fourth album, do exactly that, arousing the dishevelled amazement of the old scribe: songs like maps, like morphological reliefs, like stories that physicise landscapes and human beings, giving them enormous, surprising powers, in a movement that enriches the inestimable value of the sound elements and more.

Filled with fluctuating, magical atmospheres, like a photograph that comes to life and descends from paper to act as a cicerone within human affairs, this work enhances the unquestionable talents of a band devoted to description, to the sharing of secrets always capable of measuring the deepest aspects of living. It is a journey made of dense cultural references, of dilations of thought within the effervescence of the delicate magic of compositions that make musical art the queen of imagination but also of concreteness.

The Berlin band, led by Ricardo Hoffmann's baritone voice, sounds like an endless orchestra of flashes, thunderbolts, dewy shivers on the skin of the heart, a set of musical instruments borrowed from classical music to give the melody a psychedelic feeling within a folk structured to become an intimate film projected in the living room of one's mind. The dark and gothic areas of this work have nothing to do with the sensory exaggeration of what are the specific characteristics of those musical genres, but better demonstrate their existence in the human journey.

Between a folk masked by glitter with a sad smile and the rich imagery of a Nick Cave coming out of an analytical therapy, the album brings together different stylistic methods to arrive at the top of a hill: what one sees is a skilful predisposition to nuances, to descriptions of the motions of thought circumscribed within a quiver that is placed on the stage of perfection.

And here it is that slowness, so forgotten and guiltily abandoned by men (and which becomes, thanks to the German band, the reference point to circumstantiate their artistic project), brings everything to life in this attitude of taking time, and this is the primary condition to underline the greatness of this work. 

You dream, you weep, you cuddle your heart, while the songs write an emotional furrow with no boundary but tons of awareness, swinging between the leaves that as they move reveal the truth of existence. A record that shakes, blesses, reveals, shakes fragility in order to console and calm it with a long, tender embrace.

Everything seems to spring from woods, cellars, shelters and the sandpaper of thoughts that seek a story to tell: The Whispering Woods is a gondola trip through all this, between the impossible, chaos and discipline that meet, establish a pact for a healthy coexistence, and end up astounding all our senses...

 Alex Dematteis

Musicshockworld

Salford

20 February 2023

https://musicshockworldblog.blogspot.com/2023/02/my-review-saline-grace-whispering-woods.html
 

https://www.dailymusicroll.com/review/saline-grace-pierces-deep-into-the-recesses-of-heart-with-the-album-the-whispering-woods.html

From 6th November 2022 on, you will have the chance to get a first impression of the new album 'The Whispering Woods' through an official album teaser on youtube.

Before the album release date, a single titled 'The Evening Prayer' will be out on 6th January 2023. The pre-sale of the first single will start already on 30th December 2022.

Also on 6th January 2023 the pre-sale of the new album 'The Whispering Woods' will start together with the single release.

The official album release date is set for the 21st January 2023.

Thanks a lot for your support! 

Saline Grace have almost completed the work on their upcoming new album, which will be released in the beginning of next year. An album teaser should be visible in late autumn this year.