Grit – Madrugada

Grit – Madrugada; review excerpt from Pitchfork:  When Madrugada finally emerged from their frozen matrix to release 1999’s New Depression EP, they were greeted with open arms by both the public and the press: The somber, Cohen-afflicted “Riverbed” shot to #2 on the Norwegian charts, and the band was summarily snatched up by Virgin Records.

Grit was originally released in 2002– placing it a hair behind the fore of the revivalist rock movement– and is now seeing reissue in the U.K. But Madrugada were writing music together while The Strokes were still in private school, and belong to a tight but prolific Scandanavian rock scene that has produced a handful of significant acts in recent years.

The 11 songs here move at a furious pace, awash in treble and bombastic drums, rarely stopping to reconnoiter.
Naturally, there are references to people crossing the proverbial “line,” and a few songs come dangerously close to doing so themselves by spilling into monotony.

Madrugada’s sound is tight-clenched and frenetic, if ultimately unspectacular, and when the band runs out of killer riffs, and begins to sound overtly and incoherently derivative, the album falters.

Tracee sings on “Try”