Music News Blog

An update from Kyrbgrinder on the current status of the band.

To all fans and followers of Kyrbgrinder,

We apologise for the slowness in our response to address the issue of Kyrbgrinder and Kyrbgrinder250, but that’s not to say we’ve forgotten or taken for granted your earnest and most generous support and contributions.. In fact, far from it!

The band will make good ALL funds contributed towards K250, (a fund devised and implemented by our then manager Nick) which was intended to partially fund the recording of the next album. For the sake of clarity, we (The band) concluded that the announcement posted some weeks ago (regarding our dis-bandment) may have been a little premature. We have decided to delete it, in order to allow ourselves some well overdue time to think, breath and create a little space so we can re-evaluate our goals and more importantly, decide whether or not we’re still going to be creating music together.

We don’t have an imminent announcement regarding the latter but as mentioned, we must address the fact that contributors who wish to be reimbursed must be addressed. An email has gone out with information to all those who contributed. One persons email has bounced, so if you contributed and didn’t receive an email from us already, please contact kyrbgrinder@gmail.com and confirm your previous email address (to confirm identity) and we’ll sort it out.

For the rest of you!……………”Watch this space.”

Welcome news, and goes some way to clearing up the uncertainty following the disappearance of their earlier announcement.

It appears as though the prog-metal power trio Kyrbgrinder have split. A statement on The Kyrbgrinder Facebook page on Friday 29th March said that the band were calling it a day, and gathered a large number of tributes from fans. A couple of days later the announcement disappeared without explanation, and since then there’s been no unambiguous statement from either band or management on precisely what the true situation is. The official website at Kyrbgrinder.net is unreachable, and neither their MySpace or Twitter accounts have been updated for a very long time.

I never got to see Kyrbgrinder at one of their own gigs, but I was fortunate enough to see them no fewer than four times at the Cambridge Rock Festival, inccluding two headline spots on second stage. Kyrbgrinder were one of those bands for whom the recorded and live experiences were two quite different things. On record, examplified by their excellent album “Cold War Technology”, they packed a powerful metal punch, but they could also be quite melodic, even soulful. Live, they were visceral and in-your-face, with the intensity of something like Rage Against The Machine. Johanne James, fronting the band from behind the kit has a magnetic stage presense, singing lead and playing full-on metal drums at the same time. They were always a bit bonkers, and always entertaining, and I’ll never forget the way Johanne invited several young children on stage to sing backing vocals on one song.

If, as seems likely, they really have split, they will be much missed.