Underground Artist of The Week: Grayskul

 

For The Power of Grayskul!





This weeks Underground Artist Review, has the pleasure of bringing to you, the group Grayskul. For those of you who have not been privileged enough to see these amazing artist live, you will get an overview today that will persuade you to do so and soon. Grayskul is made up of members Onry Ozzborn, JFK, and Rob Castro. These great artists are currently residing on Rhymesayers Entertainments' label. 

The first time I saw Grayskul was at a Tragedy show in the amazing, and long gone, Rock and Roll Pizza (that used to reside on 112th and Powell in Portland OR). Though the venue is now long gone, Grayskul still lives on and grows more talented and masterful each day. Grayskul put on an incredible show that night and even gave me an exclusive interview after that show, that will appear on the Tragedy DVD, release date TBD.  The band has continued to prove themselves worthy of such a great name after all these years. With their debut release of "Deadlivers" (2005), Grayskul paved the way for a new idea of Hip/Hop that has been a supervillian's design of music takeover. Set on nothing less then world and music domination. With great songs like "Action Figure of Speech" and "Deadlivers" the album gave the fans a great amount of lyrical stylings that were well written and full of actual content. 

The only complaint I had was that many of the songs and rhythm styles seemed the same. As I moved from song to song on the CD I felt the way the band put their lyrics to song was very similar in sound (same inflection on each verse of each song on the CD) but if that is the worst thing on the CD they are doing better then 98% of underground artists out there, that I could write a page of what they are doing that bothers me musically. 

Grayskul also released these albums in 2005: Creature, Wand and The Gun. 

The next CD I came across was Bloody Radio (2007). This CD shows amazing growth, improvement of talent, and infliction in lyrics that I had previously found disheartening in the first CD. The song shows that with time and practice comes better quality and more toned skills. I enjoyed songs such as "Missing", "Is It Me", and "Us". If Grayskul was able to maximize their growth from CD  to CD, like they have done here, in just two years then I am looking forward to reviewing what is next. 

Grayskul also released these albums in 2007: Facefeeder, Scarcrow, and Prom Quiz

The next CD that Grayskul put out is called Graymaker (2009). I enjoyed the change of pace in this album. The tempo was slowed down a bit, but the lyrical content was till present. Songs that make you think and see things in our world that many people turn a blind eye too or may not recognize, made for amazing songs that will last the test of time. Songs from this CD that really stood out for me were "Bread and Wine", "Duece Duece", and "Drapes". The album had a mix of slower beats and quicker tempos. I feel that each album has shown more growth and more lyrical maturity then the previous CDs. 

Grayskul has not released an album since 2009, which makes for the longest time period between albums since 2005. I hope that Grayskul has something amazing in the works for fans. The last Facebook post showed they were playing in Seattle in Sept 2012. So we know that Grayskul is still working and producing music, and until they release another anticipated album we will be patiently waiting. For the power of Grayskul can not be contained nor eliminated. So tell your Grayskul fans that the band is in the midst of their "super special, awesome ultra special, sexy transformation sequence...go! (Grayskull quotes).