Grizz
Nocturnal
self-released
Los Angeles darkwave artist Grizz has been slowly building a reputation around his considerable stage charisma and his take on modern electronic darkwave, which emphasizes sparse but meaty sound design and arrangements. New mini-album Nocturnal attests to that approach, especially in how it keeps Grizz’s presence centered, with his voice, both whispered and warbled filling out the mix.
Grizz’s biggest asset isn’t just his voice, but his sense of how to apply it to any given track. On Diva Destruction collaboration “Come Alive” he affects a grostesque growl that lurks behind the regal delivery of Debra Fogarty, pushing through the song’s whirring synths and pads with an almost casual, yet still menacing bearing. That capacity to keep his voice present in lower registers is especially helpful on busier tracks like the industrial touched “Face to Face”, where despite the machinegunning snares and bursts of squealing acid synths, he never gets lost in the chaos. When he slides into the electropop styled “Dawn the Light” in a cloud of reverbs and delays, he needs only to mutter a few quick words to impart the otherwise clean cut with a healthy amount of lo-fi gusto.
Nocturnal takes Grizz in a lot of differing musical directions, but almost all are defined less by individual genre markers than by how they form around him. When Grizz jumps on “Feasible” with frequent collaborator Vick Vapors and ratpajama it’s with a whispered confidence that sets off the former’s low-key sneer and the latter’s narcotized delivery, the touches of hyperpop in ping-ponging vocal hits and elastic keyboard bass becoming all the more uncanny and unnerving. It’s especially notable on the songs with a strong hook of their own; “Destiny” has the most immediate hook of any song in his rapidly expanding catalogue, even moreso when Grizz chooses some of his cleanest, albeit still drenched in modulation, phrasing.
To that point, many of Nocturnal‘s songs wouldn’t be musically notable without Grizz on them. The title track is a fairly standard slice of modern electro-darkwave, serviceable but it’s his poise and vocal magnetism that give it most of its charm. It’s when Grizz strays furthest into oddball territory that the record shows his full potential; on “Casting” the atonal bass and steel drum sounds provide a kinetic backdrop for his punky freeform ad libs and shouts, shouts, rueful chuckles and grunts left intact around the sample of hyperpop producer fairyflesh. It’s the most unique moment to be found on Nocturnal, and the one that shows how far he can travel beyond the musical territory he’s already visited.
