Blessure Graves is composed of one spooky dude name T. Grave and one gloomy girl named Reyna Kay, and Mr. Grave sings like Ian Curtis except not really. Still, he manages a slightly better Ian Curtis than the guy from Silk Flowers and the hundreds of other guys singing like Ian Curtis at this very moment.
Here is a band that sounds like a lot of other lo-fi and goth acts that have been moping out the jams over the past 30 years, but they’re doing it slightly better. The influences listed on the band’s MySpace profile are strictly 80s death rock and they stick to this recipe religiously. Again, the dude calls himself Grave.
In the spirit of doing as little as possible to stand out, Judged By Twelve, Carried By Six aims for lo-fi charm but can sound flat and cheap. The minimal approach backfires most egregiously on “A Thousand Drums” whose chorus draws attention to the unhappy reality of Blessure Grave’s percussion section being approximately one drum machine in a guy’s bedroom. A song about a thousand drums deserves at the very least some reverb. I beg Blessure Grave to revisit those Joy Division records' production methods.
It’s supremely unfair to compare any lo-fi / whateverwave act of 2010 to Joy Division, but there’s not much else to talk about. If you haven’t had your fill of bands that sound like Joy Division, Southern California’s got another one for you. Happy moping!
