JIM GRIFFIN – The Counterblast (2025, LP Sound Effect Records) 

RELEASE INFO:

Label: Sound Effect Records

Format: LP, Album, Deep Space Classic Black Vinyl

Format: LP, Album, Limited Edition “Bellatrix Blue” Vinyl

Release Date: 14 Nov 2025

A Brief History of Jim Griffin

Jim Griffin is a musician from Limerick, Ireland. As part of post rock instrumentalists Zombie Picnic, Jim released two well received albums via Golden Shred Records (Ireland) and Burning Shed (UK) between 2016 and 2018. As a solo performer, Jim has released two experimental acoustic albums via psychedelic folk-drone UK label Reverb Worship on CD and cassette. Jim’s 2021 solo album THE SIGNAL was a space rock tour-de-force, featuring a range of guest musicians and electronic artists from across Ireland, the UK and the US – most notably including a guest performance from original Blue Öyster Cult founding member, Joe Bouchard. A track from this album was featured on a special 10” lathe cut, released by krautrock specialists, Fruits de Mer Records (UK). “The Signal” received a re-mastered vinyl release on Sound Effect Records (Greece) in 2023. Never one to be limited by genre, Jim came back down to earth with a distinctly less-is-more approach on 2024’s “Marginalia Suburbia”. Released on CD by Ramble Records (Australia), this album saw Jim exploring his hometown through snippets of field recordings, carefully laid against a backdrop of acoustic guitar loops, timpani, and gentle electronic instrumentation. 

Somewhere between the smoke trails of Challenger and the crumbling temples of classic prog, Jim Griffin lights the fuse again. “The Counterblast” isn’t just another concept record, it’s a transmission from the wreckage of lost futures, a Lovecraftian distress call encoded in doom riffs and cosmic static. Griffin, ever the galactic cartographer of Ireland’s psych underground, threads Carl Sagan samples through Sabbath gravity, folds space-time with Crimsonesque sax, and drags the ghost of Zombie Picnic out for one more orbit. With David Reece roaring from the cockpit and a rhythm section that sounds like it’s cracking planets in half, this is Griffin’s most expansive – and most personal – voyage yet.

“The Counterblast” contains 3 tracks on the first side and a three-part track on the second side of the LP album. Griffin opens the portal with “Cosmic Law and Order”, a reclaimed relic – his reimagining of a long-lost Zombie Picnic track, now resurrected like some glitching transmission from a parallel 1970s. Carl Sagan’s sampled voice orbits over tectonic bass and gravity-warped guitars, while Charles Lawson’s cosmic sermonizing fractures into static. The production feels wide-open and cinematic, like an airlock door left ajar to the void… Futuristic Prog at its best!

We are about to enter the heaviness, with “Xenocide”. Sabbath doom meets Crimson discipline in a colossal act of controlled chaos. Robbie Costelloe’s saxophone isn’t here for decoration reasons, it disrupts, slicing through the riff like solar radiation. David Reece takes center stage here, his voice a perfect vessel for Griffin’s vision. Beneath it all, Keith McCoy’s drumming pushes the track toward implosion, hitting with the force of a dying star…

Side ‘A’ comes to an end with “A Counterblast to Astral Travel”, two parts, two personalities: the first a punk-fueled alien rant, the second a poisoned acoustic letter from beyond reason. The transition is jarring in the best possible way, like stumbling from a riot into an abandoned observatory…

Side ‘B’ occupies just one track, the 3-part “Sleeping Generation I–III”, and here’s where “The Counterblast” truly reveals itself. The three-part suite opens with delicate electronics and finger picked guitar, a soundworld closer to Griffin’s solo ambient work than to the heavy gravity of Side A. His voice – calm, cracked, and utterly human – anchors the suite in lived experience. As it slowly unfolds, the music swells with vintage synths, spectral choirs, and the echo of forgotten playgrounds. The narrative shifts from the Challenger disaster to the collective amnesia of a generation promised the stars but given screens. By the time the final movement dissolves, we’re left suspended – not in despair, but in the eerie calm of acceptance…

In conclusion, “The Counterblast” is the sound of a musician unafraid to wrestle with ghosts, scientific, cultural, and personal. It’s prog for the lost space age, psych-rock for those who still believe that distortion can be devotional. If “The Signal” was the transmission, “The Counterblast” is the reckoning…

***The Bandcamp edition includes two exclusive bonus tracks. “For The Dying Empire” blends futuristic prog elements with deep, driving bass lines, groovy guitar licks, strange spacey samples, and soft, whisper-like vocals. “January Sky” shifts toward a more techno-oriented, proggy territory – robotic vocals, shimmering guitars, pulsing synths, and what sounds like a drum machine create a rich, cosmic atmosphere. TimeLord Michalis

Tracklist

Links

Listen / Buy through JIM GRIFFIN Bandcamp

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