Grand Vapids - Eat the Shadow (2019)

Emerging from the revered Athens, Georgia indie scene, post-punk rockers Grand Vapids are returning with a new full-length, Eat the Shadow. Produced by David Barbe (The Glands, Drive-By Truckers, Sugar) and tracked live at Athens' Chase Park Transduction, the 9-track set is a long-awaited follow-up to their 2015 debut Guarantees, which Stereogum called "instrumentally lush, understated indie rock." Consequence of Sound praised, "[N]othing is ever hurried, and each moving part feels defined and purposeful," and Impose added, "A sledgehammer to the gut hit of deconstructed self-agonizing anguish...strikes you in your most vulnerable spot." The album landed Grand Vapids on Paste Magazine's "25 Georgia Bands You Should Listen To Now" and saw them share stages with Ought, Pile, Fred Thomas, T. Hardy Morris, and Pure Bathing Culture. While Guarantees proved a perfect postcard from the time when they were fresh and lean and full of nothing but beginner's hope, nearly half a decade later Eat the Shadow presents a band that has resurfaced after dark years of coping with personal tragedy, identity crisis, and dysfunctional relationships. The album opener, "Disjecta," was inspired by the latter, serving as catharsis for two partners in the midst of breaking up while still living together and attempting to rediscover their respective identities. The track's slacker-rock vibes project the sense of foreboding that accompanies feeling isolated in a relationship that is consuming you. It is one of a group of songs on Eat the Shadow - along with album tracks "Shallow," "Creature Strain," and "Drowning" - that each capture different periods of a long cycle of dissolution and unraveling.