Liam Grant (Boston, MA) is a New England guitarist with a punk ethos, cut from the American Primitive cloth. The restless guitar explorations, modal epics and driving uptempo rags recall the likes of Grant's pedagogue: Takoma Records and the path that was paved by his forebears John Fahey, Robbie Basho, Peter Walker, Max Ochs and later Glenn Jones, Steffen Basho-Junghans, Jack Rose, and others.
Bridging that past Grant evokes the pith of the landscape where he was raised. Instrumental memoirs and ruminations on the banks of the Merrimack River. Amoskeag and the place where the waters flow around it. Salmon tails up the falls and black pearls from the river. The exodus to Stratton-Eustis and the last night on Dead River before the great flood.
By J. Annis
With Prodigal Son, fingerstyle rambler Liam Grant continues his investigation into lineage and place with quite possibly the rawest, loudest acoustic guitar recording you'll hear all year. Casting aside delicate precision, Grant offers up unwieldy and elemental excursions that reach from the well-trod terra firma and wreath themselves into a knotty concentric circle inside the heart of contemporary guitar soli... [READ MORE]
By Staff
Liam Grant's Prodigal Son lands on VHF like a lightning strike, a second album that digs deep into the American primitive guitar vein while cranking the distortion and letting the tape hiss sing. [READ MORE]
By Holger Adam
He stays on task throughout, his guitar playing is committed, sometimes rough and overwhelming, yet delicate, full of details and ultimately - and this is not unimportant in a genre that has no shortage of Fahey epigones - very original. [READ MORE]
By Jennifer Lucy Allan
Recording is rough and often distorted or in the red, and this grit sits well. On "Salmon Tails Up The River" his fingers are fluid and glittering over the strings, "Insult To Injury" drops into a gentle lyricism; "A Moment At The Door" is sparse and pensive and "Old Country Rock", is of a moonshine-on-the-old-back-porch vintage. [READ MORE]
By Joshua Moss
How does one go about making music not usually understood as "punk" sound like punk? How best to apply the DIY ethos, the construction by destruction, of punk art to other genres? How can the guide-fires that have been lit by past iconoclasts of the underground illuminate explorations in different styles? Maine-based fingerstyle guitarist Liam Grant provides his answers to these questions in the form of his sophomore LP, Prodigal Son (out 2/21/2025 on VHF Records), a collection of anti-tradition-traditional-style music -- American Primitive with a capital A and P through a dirtied lens [READ MORE]
By Conor Moore
Grant / McGuire / Flaherty harkens back to- and sounds like- the time in American history when songs were recorded with tin cans and spoons [...] A collaborative EP between up-and-coming guitarist Liam Grant, fiddle player Grayson McGuire and banjoist Devon Flaherty, it carries the weight of its influences so strongly as if to remind the listener of a time that has long since-passed. [READ MORE]
By Luca Salmini
Amoskeag, the first album composed exclusively of original material, which gives a glimpse of the artist's immense slow talent. Archaic country, pre-war folk, Appalachian bluegrass, spirited ragtime, primitive blues and even avant-garde and psychedelia intertwine in six long instrumental tracks mostly for acoustic guitar alone, pervaded by a sense of immediacy and authenticity that Liam Grant he achieves with a sound that is at times urgent, lyrical and imaginative and with a completely personal style. [...] An imaginative and eclectic guitarist gifted with extraordinary technique and sensitivity, Liam Grant is one of the most inspired soloists you will ever hear. [READ MORE]
By Bill Meyer
[...] works of the past animate [Grant], and he's keen to return them the favor. [...] Amoskeag offers raga-inspired fantasias and old time-steeped invitations to kick up your hoofs, balancing winding reverie with convivial celebration. [READ MORE]
By Glenn Kimpton
[...] much promise was already shown by Liam on Swung Heavy, an ace homage of sorts to his favourite players that dedicated over half of its run time to cover versions of classic and well-respected guitar tunes. [...] what hits you first is the confidence in Liam's approach to acoustic picking and his apparent ease of playing long, technical pieces and having them sound interesting and vital [READ MORE]
By J. Annis
Emerging as wood-and-steel road warrior over the last couple years, Liam Grant is a journeyman pupil of the guitar soli dharma emanating from the Takoma school and beyond. With Amoskeag, Grant carves his own path through roving distances of hard-driving, raga-infused guitar excursions, ultimately arriving somewhere that feels like home. Born of a year's incessant touring, the six extended compositions on his second full-length release are reverent contemplations of time, memory, and place, coursing with the ancestral spirits of Grant's native New England and the melodic traditions of country bluegrass, ragtime, and blues. [READ MORE]
By Lars Gotrich
On a recent tour with the singer-songwriter Buck Curran, the guitarist Liam Grant reminded me of Jack Rose -- a raw and wild fingerstyle undercut by youthful sweetness -- yet there's definitely something of his own. His first widely available release, Amoskeag, is out now. [READ MORE]
By Jay Hinman
The notion of "pyrotechnics" in the realm of acoustic guitar is probably a little silly, but I submit that you know it when you hear it. It's when you think they are four hands playing, when there are only two. John Fahey had it. Jack Rose had it. Daniel Bachman has it. Gwenifer Raymond sometimes has it. Liam Grant definitely has it. [READ MORE]
By Glenn Kimpton
[...] More unusual in its style is Aroostook, an anomaly here in that it feels completely original in places and far less in keeping with past styles and genres. A very low picked intro leads into a quite disparate first half before a more patterned and rhythmic second picks up. This tune, underpinning the piece, is lovely, with wide-eyed innocence and playfulness. The whole album is a real pleasure to listen to, but Aroostook is the tune here that is telling me that Liam is a musician to keep an eye on. [READ MORE]
By Tyler Wilcox
Above all, Grant is a fun player, swinging mightily and diving deep, coming back to the surface with plentiful pearls from the river. [READ MORE]
By Bygone Colon
As perchance this brisk July eve in the Boston area, I was to experience a delightful musical and aesthetic encounter. As unpretentious and undistinguished as the visual accoutrement of the musical craftsmanship may have been, the sound of Liam Grant was brilliantly polished and pulsated as rhythmically as could be expected for his indigenous brand of semi-eclecticism would allow...
2025 written interview by Joeri Bruyninckx for It's Psychedelic Baby Magazine.
Written interview at the The Self Portrait Gospel website.
Live on Numbers Radio Show on WAYO 104.3 FM Rochester hosted by Joe Tunis of Carbon Records fame.
Six Strings of Tension podcast interview with the reclusive Liam Grant by Durbin, South Africa's Duncan Park.