This is a fun project from Gruff. So much more than an album, this is also a film, book and an app. Why limit yourself? This is a review of the album only, for the other objects of art, you’ll have to go elsewhere.

This is a concept album if there ever was one. In another man’s hands, a concept album is a dangerous thing, but you can sit pretty with Gruff. He’s well used to them, after his various jaunts with Neon Neon. Gruff means it to be a “multisensory experience telling the incredible true story of John Evans.” Evans is one of Rhys’s ancestors and this project aims to tell the tale of his trip to America in 1792 to seek out a supposed Welsh-speaking Native-American tribe, the Madogwys.

In truth the concept has little impact on the album, other than through the lyrics and song titles. It’s the premise that holds together the work, but it does not affect the style or feel of the recording. There is good variation in sound on this album. It opens with the short ‘American Exterior’ which is like a loading sequence of an 80’s computer game, an 8 bit mass of bleeps and tones. There’s an all out Johnny Cash number in ‘100 Unread Messages’ and another country tune in ”The Whether Or Not’. There’s a bizarre bouncing track, created mostly on a computer called ‘Allweddellau Allweddol’ and sung in Welsh. ”The Last Conquistador’ is introduced with the cheesiest synths and drum machines available, complete with shooting star effect, before it breaks to piano for the chorus.

Some tracks do bounce off each other, and it doesn’t sound as cohesive an album as you would expect. It feels like the uneasy mix of a greatest hits, but if it is meant to represent a journey, these are just different stops along the way. The individual tracks are impressive and it’s nice to get inside Gruff’s brain every once in a while, it’s an unusual place to visit!

The album is available here. You can hear the album in full below.

Gruff plays/ reads in Whelans as part of Dublin Writer’s Festival.

Release date 5th May

Album tracklist:

American Exterior
American Interior
100 Unread Messages
The Whether (Or Not)
The Last Conquistador
Lost Tribes
Liberty (Is Where We’ll Be)
Allweddellau Allweddol
The Swamp
Iolo
Walk Into The Wilderness
Year Of The Dog
Tiger’s Tale