Navel Grazr - “Glum (Turning 25)” b/w “Spiraling”
Navel Grazr is the relatively new project of songwriter Anjali Nair, who you may recognize from her skilled guitar playing in several Brooklyn bands like Joyce and Endearments. While she makes solid contributions to those groups, Navel Grazr is entirely of Nair’s own making, and thus, her songs have more of a personal focus and further reflect her own diverse songwriting style. Through this project, she’s showcased her vocal talents and soulful range on the very Fleetwood Mac-sounding track, “Borderlander,” while her up-tempo debut single, “Happy Again,” coupled her indie rock guitar mastery with an uplifting message of perseverance.
On “Glum (Turning 25)” and “Spiraling,” Nair evokes similar feelings of resolve, backing her ruminations on life and death with a dense, guitar centric-sound. The two songs are a perfect pair, acting as opposite sides of the same coin in order to dissect the anxieties and realizations that come with getting older.
“Glum (Turning 25)” is a product of the tension that tends to set in for many at the quarter-century mark, particularly during the onset of catastrophic global occurrences. Such circumstances can make your mortality seem all the more apparent, and Nair pulls no punches through some grimly sardonic lyricism: “Turning 25 is like turning 35. Bloodletting. The days whisked together and thrown in the sink. Reeling forward feels like sitting back. Then it's all over.” Nevertheless, the hooky refrain and brisk rhythm make it seem like she’s wryly smiling through it all, effectively transforming the lyrical tenacity heard on “Happy Again” into a bullish sonic wave of pointed synths, rippling guitar riffs, and some head nodding low ends.
On the contrary, “Spiraling” is decidedly darker sounding in its arrangements and seems to chronicle an unraveling, but it has some pretty huge moments. The song slowly gains steam and hits an absolutely killer apex just after the two-minute mark, with Nair throwing the kitchen sink at the listener: hard cymbal crashes, massive, interlocking guitars, and a series of haunting harmonies. She also mixes in more of that characteristic emotional endurance to equal those sonic heights, as the track closes on a high note: “I’m down on the ground and you ain’t around. Who cares if I struck out?” That combination will definitely inspire you to step up to the plate again.
Stream both tracks below.
Check out Navel Grazr’s music on Bandcamp or on your streaming platform of choice. Keep up with the project on Instagram!
