Review of Duty To Warn, by Jiří Vladimír Matýsek in Full Moon Magazine (Czech Republic)

“Year after year, Seattle’s Gravelroad continue to craft their unique blues, which is cut with grunge and psychedelia. Their concert activities – that is, those on the old continent – have been slowed down by the covid pandemic, but albums are released with an iron regularity of two to three years. This year’s Duty to Warn is already the ninth item in the discography. A decent performance for two decades.
The music is based on the principles of North Mississippi Hill Country Blues, i.e. a lot of work is done here with hypnotic repetitiveness and urgent rolling. The sound is out of focus, the vocals seem to float in a mist over the intertwining fuzzed guitars. And whether Gravelroad are rockier, like in Jailhouse Limp, or, on the contrary, “introspective” like in Oceans, it’s intoxicating and captivating every time. Even in the case of the somewhat unexpectedly relaxed Traveler, which takes the American quartet almost into the realm of country music.
The sound is traditionally signed by Jack Endino, the man who gave the same care to the records of Nirvana, Soundgarden, Screaming Trees and the entire Seattle musical cream. Duty to Warn sounds both massive and acceptably obscured. Compared to the oppressive Crooked Nation Blues (2020), which hit Trumpian America with gusto, Duty to Warn is a bit lighter. But the truth – only slightly. The bony drive serving an hourglass with red sand, which decorates the cover record this time, together with songs like World on Fire or Stormʹs Coming, suggests that it is just a break and there is not much space left for space trips from older records.
Over time, Gravelroad managed to create a unique concept of heavy-duty blues. On Duty to Warn, they deepen and add new elements to what has already been established, be it the aforementioned country music or Taryn Dorsey’s vocals on all four tracks. The essential, the captivating groove, the bluesy feeling and the imaginary weight of the entire material, remains.”