Dunlavy - Navigator Closes His Eyes

  by Andrew Carver

published: 9 / 3 / 2003

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Review

Dunlavy is the musical pseudonym of Houston, Tex. guitarist Scott Grimm. Grimm made his name in The Mike Gunn, a sludgy psych titan that was the greatest combination of Texas grit with Sabbath doom rock since Ozzy Osbourne peed on the Alamo. 'The Navigator ...' is Grim’s seventh album (he’s been busy since The Mike Gunn’s mid-1990s split), and it is a definite improvement  on his last album, the somewhat disjointed 'The Alison Effect'. The album starts with 'The Unknown', which weds guitar drones and synth washes in a fabulously lysergic instrumental. The riffs really kick in on 'The Gift', where they surround a stop-and-start narrative from Grimm’s wife of a fatal shooting at a dinner. Grimm is joined on vocals by Gunn cohort Jim “Crevasse” Cramer on 'The Crushing Weight' a cautionary tale for those who fail to seize the day with more layers of fuzzed out riffs that head out into space on the latter two-thirds of the 12-minute track. After an ambient synth track, there’s another long track, the creepy 'Little One', about a pair of space travellers stranded on a hostile world, from which the album takes its name. The album concludes with 'Mohawk Vally'. The guitars are cleaner, but the vibe is still somewhat spooky. The record might have benefited from a more involved production, but is otherwise a fine piece of mindbending Texas psych.

Track Listing:-

1 Unknown
2 Lance's Story
3 The Crushing Weight
4 Little One
5 Mohawk Valley