Its been fifteen years and well, fans of Grandaddy will be happy to know in lieu of their expected March 3rd, 2017 studio album release, a sort of olive-branch has been extended in the form of a string of early-out tracks. Birch trees and ferns and oh yeah, some creepy, white-noise-like silhouettes of people all play out in the third single “A Lost Machine” from Grandaddy’s upcoming album, Last Place; notably brought to listeners via Danger Mouse’s 30th Century Records (que cool).
The Modesto, California natives entrance their listeners (or maybe viewers?) in an eery tour of a sun-lit, backwoods vista for the track A Lost Machine. A slow-moving, single-stream take from a camera play on the melodic taps of a piano and the enchanting voice of Jason Lytle (Grandaddy frontman).
According to Paste Magazine, “The song narrative takes place in a ‘canyon land’ that contains ‘every woman and child and man.'” Both components, film and music etch at some kind of disturbance in the beauty, or beauty in the disturbed. For, whimpering, yet epic guitar riffs enter and retreat from the continuos work of the keyboard. Penultimately, Grandaddy embellish A Lost Machine with overlapping synthesizers and distortion.
Ghost-like effect, echoing to the microphone further cement the bittersweet themes boasted throughout the song, leaving listeners feeling a little strung out on, is it, love? A Lost Machine feels much like the winter theme song: for the unsettling season branded with impending certainties of snow, and isolation beckon the alternative rock band’s sad-boy mentality.
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