Grooving stoner grunge from Old Grandad gets a re-issue.

San Francisco in 1994 is when the band came together. According to the story, “Will Carroll, Erik Moggridge, and Max Barnett created a thrash/death metal-flavored, Sabbath-inspired, Satanic-Floydian, groove-guzzling giant.” That is quite a confluence of influences and when you listen to the music on this re-issue you definitely hear them all.

In addition to the albums in question, Old Grandad produced The Last Upper in 1999 and Hocus Corpus in 2005. After that they were quiet on the recording front until 2019 when a new self-titled album came out. It is great to look back now with this new version of the early work and have a chance to take it all in.

The two albums included here are the first full-length Hectic Records release from 1995 and the 1997 EP. I hadn’t listened to Old Grandad very closely until I put this one on a couple times. It is a fascinating combination of those aforementioned elements, along with a considerable amount of screaming. The guitars are fuzzy, the rhythm is steady, and psychedelia abounds.

It is hard to take the themes seriously with song titles like “The Highs That Bind,” “Blatant Drug Song,” and “Don’t Call Me A Deadhead,” so instead settle in for a good time. I can’t say first-hand whether this music is an artifact of the time and place it was created in and therefore represents the circles Old Grandad moved in back in the day. I bet it does, though, and anyway we can all listen to it now no matter what. Recommended.

This re-issue of Vol. 666 ~ OGD EP is out now through Hectic Records. Bandcamp is the place to go.

Band photo by Lori Higbey.

Links.

Bandcamp, https://hecticrecords.bandcamp.com/releases

Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/oldgrandadsf/

Hectic Records, https://www.hectic.com/