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anyways-wonderwall · 2 years

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Album of the Week #31

The Battle at Garden’s Gate

(2021)

by Greta Van Fleet

Overall Rating: 7.5/10

TL;DR: Powerful, ethereal, intricate, and way too long.

(Simple. Art Deco. 10/10)

Greta Van Fleet is one of the reasons I started this blog. I generally started it out of anger towards other music reviewers for being condescending and pretentious which drives me crazy because I really doubt you could make a better song. Everyone listens to music and to make your review with big words you barely use correctly and a hoity toity attitude clearly shows you’re compensating for something.

Rant aside, Greta Van Fleet is very maligned by music critics because they’re either just copying classic rock (hey white classic rock, weren’t you often just stealing music from black groups who came before you?), or they’re not copying it well enough and getting too creative. They seem to be a group that old guys whole write reviews love to hate and I for one am sick of it.

Overall Thoughts

Okay saying all that do I think that Greta Van Fleet is the greatest rock group ever? No! But are they really good and just maligned for being young? Yes! I will say that their first album didn’t sound super original (barely any popular music is which isn’t a problem because that’s just how music works) but in this one they found their sound. While you can hear similarities between what they are doing and 70s classic rock, this is very much its own thing, with really cool instrumentation choices and producing that sounds incredible.

My main gripe with the album was that all the songs were just so dang long for no reason. Maybe Tiktok and pop music has fried my brain to the point that I sigh at seeing 5 minute songs but sometimes they are really not necessary. There are classic rock songs that are like 7 minutes but they are doing something in that time. They are changing, telling a story, taking you on a journey, and in none of these long songs did I feel any of that. It was just repetition to fill time, maybe because their predecessors made long songs they felt they had to do it. Hey guess what, you don’t. While pretty much all the songs did this, “Broken Bells” and “The Barbarians” were the biggest culprits.

Another problem with these long songs is that if you don’t have a good riff in them I just have nothing to latch on there and my brain is just gonna let the song go by. “My Way, Soon” and “Caravel” both stuck out for this reason, although I still often got lost in the mass of electric guitar. I think that the group does a great job of writing each song with a kind of atmosphere in mind, and using an array of instruments to get it across. There’s organ throughout the album(!!!) sometimes conveying sadness and nostolgia, other times power, and there are frequently ethereal interludes of acapella “aaaahhhs” that are so amazing (“The Barbarians” “Trip the Light Fantastic”). There even if a killer cello bassline in “Broken Bells” which I particularly loved because I feel like whenever strings are in a song they just act as background and never something central.

The voice kinda got old after a while though :/. It made a lot of the songs fall into an annoying and boring dad rock category, which is not something I’m a fan of. “Stardust Chords” in particular was such a good song instrumentally and would have fit in any alt group’s discography if it weren’t for that stupid voice.

My favorites from this one were “Heat Above,” “Age of Machine,” and “Tears of Rain,” all great at building up an atmosphere with introducing layers of instruments. The first is the single off of the album that is bookmarked by a fantastic organ and starts the album, making it clear it’ll be good for a roadtrip and mindless driving. The second is my favorite and has been since before the the album came out as it was the teaser song. I love the droning repetition in the riff that builds up perfectly, and the screamy vocals work great here. The last one is another song that feels so powerful, and I without even listening to what he was saying I knew it was about a desert storm, and the fear and relief that comes with it.

Also I gotta mention the last song that is almost nine minutes long (I’ll give you one guess on if you think it should be that long) and adds lore to the album? Idk they keep talking about a kingdom and I just have to ask what is up with hard rock’s obsession with medieval europe. Can someone please tell me? I’m just so confused?

Final Verdict

This album is really good! Honestly a lot of the songs blur together, but if you like classic rock you’ll probably like this. Well, as long as you can get past the fact that young people can make something in an old genre.

#album of the week #album review #album recommendation #music review #rock music #greta van fleet #classic rock #album 31

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