London musician Geordie Greep’s first solo effort, aptly titled “The New Sound”, released on October 4th 2024, is a daring foray into absurd jazz-rock vignettes peppered with odd time signatures, theatrical presentation, Latin-American percussion, dissonant guitars, and sardonic lyricism that portrays lonely, pathetic, and at times evil men. This odd mix creates a strange amalgamation that sounds like Steely Dan from Hell, fronted by Frank Zappa. This record comes on the heels of an announcement from this past August that Greep’s former band, Black Midi is “indefinitely over”, according to Greep. On this project, Greep utilizes sounds and styles that are not entirely unfamiliar to fans of his band Black Midi. Though they began as more of a mathy noise-rock band with their debut “Schlagenheim” (2019), their sound evolved into a very theatrical King Crimsonesque prog direction with heavy jazz influence with the introduction of larger and more diverse arrangements including strings, brass, and sax players on their albums “Cavalcade” (2021) and “Hellfire” (2022).
The “New Sound” leans further into the jazz aspects of the latter two albums, while expanding the scope by pulling back on the more abrasive sound that Black Midi is known for. This results in a sound that is much easier on the ears, with many of the tracks being strangely danceable. The danceability is assuredly owed to the Latin and jazz influence on the instrumentation and composition, which is weaved throughout most of the album. “Terra” leans heavily into the Latin influence with its rhythm, blaring horns, and Spanish style acoustic guitar, layered over top is Greep’s warm crooning of incredibly dark lyrics. The title track is an instrumental that features bongos playing fast syncopated rhythms overtop dreamlike guitar work with keys. This evolves into a chaotic and frenetic sound reminiscent of jazz fusion groups like Casiopea ; and strangely the music found on the racetracks of Mario Kart. On the track “Through a War”, Greep continues to showcase Latin jazz sounds with the form dramatic and theatrical flair of what sounds like a Disney villain monologue, with subject matter based on the horrors of war and venereal disease: “You gave me nothing but an incurable disease For which I’m so glad, you’ll always be with me”, says the protagonist. In terms of instrumentation, the lead single, “Holy, Holy” contains a driving groove with keys, sax, frantic electric guitar, and a choir chanting “Holy, Holy” in the background. “Holy, Holy” is certainly the most comedic of the album’s tracks as it centers around a self-absorbed and lascivious protagonist trying to pick up women in a crass and vulgar manner, which feels like Zappa at his most satirical. The album closes with a relatively sparse and subdued cover of Sinatra’s “If You Are But a Dream” that is mostly just Greep’s passionate vocals, keys, and some horns, this comes as a welcome respite to the frantic and panicked feel of the rest of the album.
It is quite difficult to put this album into words, even though there is very much to talk about as it is so groundbreaking and never left me bored. This project is a triumph of modern music as it displays that rock music (if this can be called rock music) still has many tricks up its sleeves. Though, this sort of thing certainly is not for everyone, due to its strange genre bending nature and Geordie Greep’s unique voice, I still think that this project is worth checking out for anybody that likes jazz music, progressive rock, and even showtunes. Nonetheless, I am very excited to see what else the Greep Man has in store for the future as it will be quite difficult to top this stroke of genius. I will have to give Geordie Greep’s “The New Sound” a 10/10.
