Sunday Times: Paper Covers Stone

Monday, 5th October 2009

Willard Grant Conspiracy’s sound has been filling out lately — culminating in the orchestral sweep of last year’s Pilgrim Road — so the starker ambience of Paper Covers Stone comes as something of a surprise. And that’s not the only way in which the album harks back to the band’s earlier days. The main man, Robert Fisher, has put together a tight unit that includes Sean O'Brien and Pete Weiss, guitarist and producer on the band’s early albums, and got them to reinterpret songs from across WGC’s 13-year career. The new approach is typified by No Such Thing as Clean, once a noisy rock number, now a quieter, darker exercise in building (and — brilliantly — never actually releasing) tension. The old stuff is complemented by three new songs, strong enough to reassure fans that the creative well has not run dry.- Mark Edwards