Dj Astro Review   This is the third and so far best and most psychedelic solo album by Italian multi-instrumentalist Piero Renalli (ex-Insider, ex-Areknamés). The album includes only five tracks, but they are all about ten minutes in lenght. Piero plays all the instruments (bass, guitar, synth, drums, percussion, ocarina, radio, vocals…) by himself and is also responsible for all the compositions. The album starts off with the 12-minute-long ”Long Deep River” that begins with a weird, disharmonic synth thing that is joined by bass and guitar. The second part begins after two minutes and now we get some slow drums, bass, organ and narration. Later on the electric guitar joins in. This has a very psychedelic mood. Then the track gets stuck and some soloing follows and after six minutes the music fades out and then there are some really strange, experimental synthesizer sounds. Soon there comes also a distinctive synth melody as well as the drums. The narration is back in the picture and there is some excellent lead guitar later on. This has an amazing, hypnotic feel to it bringing to mind “Acid Mothers Temple’s “Pink Lady Lemonade” a bit. What a massive opener! Beginning in a minimal mode, “My Ritual Ashes” includes a nice synth sequence, psych sounds, bass and percussion until the drums join in before the four-minute-marker. There is also some heavily effected, spacey guitar and keyboards as well as meditative, monotonic human voice. The hypnotic, rather cosmic atmosphere of the track sort of reminds me of Lamp of the Universe. Excellent! “Fragments of You” has at first just sound of rain and experimental synthesizer stuff. At around the four-minute-marker we get some picked guitar and keyboard melodies as well as feedback, and towards the end some exiting, dark bass riff, lead guitar and meditative vocals as well as backwards sounds. Psychedelic stuff. ”Looking for the Superior Octave” has at first a slow and gloomy riff, weird sounds and small-scale rhythm. After the short ocarina break the faster, tight and groovy psych rocking begins. This is pretty heavy and great going with space sounds! This gets close to space rock. Later on, there is some ocarina again on top of the music and the end is mystical, Oriental stuff with percussion. Starting off with radio noises and a steady synth sound, also ”What I Have Never Been” includes a slow and gloomy riff and soon also some little whispering. At around the four-minute-marker the slow drums join in and the track sounds almost like doom metal. The vocals are dark and pathetic but work very well, and some more and heavier guitars are added. The vocals and guitar solos fluctuate until the number ends in buzzing noise and radio sounds. Grin is a very good and mind-expanding album and can be recommended for those who like long, mostly slow, bit monotonic but psychedelic and hypnotic tracks. There are suitable amounts of heaviness and melody in there, as well as some more experimental aspects.