Going through another morning walk before it got way too hot in the beginnings of July, seems like a daily routine for me. As I’ve mentioned before, it helps me clear my head and get through the day to start a whole set of writing reviews. One artist that has kept the landscape through a laid-back potential is vocalist, composer, and multi-instrumentalist, Grice Peters.
Last year, during the beginning part of 2023, I reviewed his fifth studio album on the hungersleep label entitled Polarchoral. I compared it to the first three Steven Wilson albums, Tim Bowness, Gazpacho, and Anathema. Not to mention a sub-healing texture of moving forwards. Two years later, Peters has come back for seconds, but going into a singer-songwriting texture with his latest album, Mordant Lake.
Rooted in the acoustic-folk, psych, and indie pop orientation which speaks of The Beatles, Wilco, Belle and Sebastian, French duo Air, and The Flaming Lips, Peters is a visual storyteller, revealing all of the lost locations that is taken place in the fictional small town that he’s unleashed to the public.
It has a mysterious atmosphere when you hear a title like Mordant Lake. It’s almost as if Peters is following Lynch’s passageway to Twin Peaks, but into a whole different background that has various stories taken place in the late ‘60s, early ‘70s. Songs like the acoustic waltz balladry behind ‘Offer You’, ‘KARL’, and ‘How Long’.
Grice takes a route into the Americana drive down the highway to see how far the location has changed. There’s some sadness behind the two tracks. You see the abandoned buildings, the older people still living there and haven’t given up on their hometown, and the loss of innocence that has affected them for a very long time.
I felt a little bit of a tug towards The Last Hurrah’s Mudflowers-era in which Jim channels Maesa Pullman’s lyrical arrangements with a mellotron-like walk towards the opened doors that are waiting for him, singing in the style of ‘The Weight of the Moon’ with a crying guitar bending, coming at you in a split second.
The opening title-track has this dark, ominous sing-along campfire arrangement on what the dangers the place has become. When you listen to the lyrics, you can get an understanding on why it was once a place to go there and start their own life, it has now become a ghost town with its folky twist between the Rumors-era of Fleetwood Mac and The Decemberists’ The Hazards of Love sessions.
‘Ghost Dance (Shed My Skin)’ returns to progressive forms as Grice walks into the abandoned mansion that has been frozen in time. You can imagine the gorgeous wallpapers in horrible conditions, the decay of the red roses decomposing, the dance halls filling up the ballrooms, and the emperor in his throne room going into a mental stability, realising the damage that he’s done to himself and the family he has ruined.
There’s some strong moog-like improvisations that speak of Premiata Forneria Marconi’s ‘Impressioni Di Settembre’ from their first album originally released in 1972, Storia Di Un Minuto. There’s something Italian about this track, and something very film-like behind the song which channels Luchino Visconti’s 1963 epic, The Leopard (Il Gattopardo) starring Burt Lancaster.
Grice has proven to himself that he has got something special underneath his sleeve. Mordant Lake is a surreal, yet significant piece of work that’ll take you towards the town to reveal more clues that the small town has hidden behind closed doors. Yet, you will be the judge; to find out what evil lurks behind the mysteries of Mordant Lake.
