Kalistani Major History

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Grungish Alt Folk hybrid gets a new Title
Music press calls emerging genre "Grit"
Port Swedes, Vrassa
October 9, 4911


Port Swedes Metal turned grunge folk band Allison, earlier this year

Hailing from the northern port city of Port Swedes, a new sound is starting to make in roads against the more traditional Alternative Rock sounds and the new upstart Alt-Folk genres which have dominated the air waves in Kalistan for years now. This sound is a distinctly harder edged sound than the Alt Folk of Joanie Yeardly, Jorgenson, Eavari Tidal, or even the folk inspired electronica of a band like Western Sky, and it is also generally a departure from the all hard rock sounds of bands like Salgo or Brown Paper Bag. It looks back to a more fundamental style of music and yet represents more than a thousand years of development since grunge first developed in the Republic and more than 200 years since Grunge was widely heard on radios in the Republic/

Music critics are calling this new hybrid genre of music "grit" because it seems to be a mixture of grunge subject matter (and drug use), with Folk instrumentation and Alternative song writing forms. "We started referring to it as 'grit' because a lot of the reviews we were getting from our readers pointed out how just dirty and raw it sounded," said Georgia Hernandez, New Music Editor for Kalistani Rawk Monthly. "People said it sounded sandblasted, or that it was stark and bare... like the grit that sometimes gets between your teeth when you are walking around near bonfire and you kind of bite down on it and it makes a really just harsh and nasty sound inside your head, that only you can hear, but that everyone known what it sounds like. I think that's really it... biting a grain of sand with your back teeth, that is more or less the sound of this weird hybrid form that it blowing up right now in Port Swedes."


"Black Fly" by Allison, an exemplar of the Grit subgenre

The first real Grit single to gain wider notice outside of the northern Port City, more famous for its deluges than for anything else, was released earlier this year by The Wolf Hound. The song "My Kinda Love" opened the flood gates for Port Swedes area musicians to get notices. Following quickly in The Wolf Hound's footsteps along the tenuously blazed trail was the band Allison, who began as a metal band, but three years ago moved more into alignment with bands like The Wolf Hound, and have now recorded their fourth album, but their first for Vrassa District Records called simply "Black Fly". The seven track maxi-EP 9 inch contains what could be possibly the defining sound of the emerging genre of Grit: amplified acoustic leads, electrified bass, heavy wall of sound drums, and maniacal vocals. There are a lot of tender moments on the record, such as the sweet goodbye song "I Ain't Never Coming Home" or the metal shredding over a string accompaniment in "Leviathan and Vespa", and there are a good many REALLY loud moments on the record, such as the bridge to "Travel South". A lot of the music contains orchestration, which is as much a demonstration of Allison's maturity as a band as it is the backing of the record label which seems to be coming into its own.

As we hear more and more music from Port Swedes, it seems that radio listeners and established acts alike are taking notice. When asked about the advancements being made in the genre she helped to spawn, Joanie Yeardly, of Vrassa City laughed and said "Those folks down there do it differently, don't they?" And then she added, "Lots of smack in that town, is all I'll say..." Teenagers seem to be getting behind the new Grittier sound from Port Swedes though. "There is like many different sides to life," said one Kaliburg youth. "I think its nice to sing about loving someone and everything, but also, I mean, sometimes relationships break up, and I think it would be better to kind of get your frustrations out by listening to music like The Wolf Hound, who seems to have lost people too, than to have to listen to how great life is all the time, you know?"

Whether Grit itself will be able to stand the test of time is unknown. So far, Port Swedes bands have not yet played shows outside of Vrassa, for the most part. "Kids only have the Swedes stuff through the radio and the internet," said Hernadez. "In the capital, we hear a lot about how wild their shows are, well, more like how loud their shows are, and you'd be surprised just how much noise acoustic guitars can make, but few have actually made the journey to go see these bands, and they aren't coming here, as of yet. So all we have is the stuff their label puts out. So far anyway. I imagine within a year, all of that will change."

You can listen to Allison's record "Black Fly" here or watch below.
[Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6LvI70Spjg]