Album Review: Grief Ritual – Collapse (Church Road Records)

On their debut album ‘Collapse’, the anger, frustration, and disenfranchisement Grief Ritual feel about the UK and the wider world are laid bare. It will be released via Church Road Records on January 31st, 2025.

Are you ready for this? Can you handle all the fury and frustration that Grief Ritual have poured into this? You should be, there’s no excuse, they’ve been building to this release with singles that displayed so much of what this album has had to offer. Yet, even having spent so much time with those songs already, absolutely nothing can fully prepare you for the intensity of this band here.

This will be their defining moment. They may better this album in the future, but always, this will be the moment that Grief Ritual arrived.

It takes a brave band, and one filled with immense confidence, to open a record with a vitriolic beast that alternates between methodical pounding and anarchic blasts. This is Spiral and it is stupidly savage, setting the abrasive bar extremely high.

How do you follow that? By teaming up with the talented Rachel Aspe of Cage Fight and delivering a chaotic blast of noise. On their own, Grief Ritual are an intense bunch, but with Rachel guesting? The word that comes to mind is feral, yet there’s a heavy accessibility that makes it kind of catchy. Yes, I know that might sound like nonsense, but trust me, it’s there.

Do you know what else is there? Passion and authenticity, and all that Grief Ritual promise, they deliver on. Continuing to express themselves in a uniquely raw and heavy way, it’s interesting to hear them take a more measured approach with Gnaw, while still infusing the track with an inordinate amount of garish ferociousness. This is violent sounding (especially when we get some two-stepping beats), but so is Bile, and this track features the incredible Harry Nott of blackened hardcore noise mongers, Burner.

What? Of course it’s f**king heavy. What do you want me to say? It’s manic. Barely passing the two-minute mark, it’s a raging ball of intensity that culminates in pure gurning glory. The kind of noise that makes you wretch.

Following that, there’s an initial tone change with Consumed, where the disconcerting and shouted vocals, alongside coarse effects, add more layers of discomfort to things. It’s how this one evolves into such a methodical beatdown that sticks in the memory though. The methodical tempo giving way to brutality that shimmers and shifts in thrilling ways. This track, like the album, has something to say, but thanks to spoken-word statements injected in, it’s clearer here.

Boundaries pushed to such a high degree already, but Grief Ritual are far from done. First, going faster than ever with the frantic Fault, and an injection of bile aimed at those in power who continue to take and take from the poorest in society, through lack of funds for public services. A lot of these tracks will resonate, some more than others depending upon your personal situation, but this is one that hits the hardest if you’ve been alive during ‘austerity’.

With absolutely no let-up, the latter part of the album continues to deliver unforgettable levels of heavy. The kind that leaves you mentally and physically drained. There’s the crunching Artifice, the chaotic Calcify, the dangerous Swine, and the blistering Putrefy. While it might seem as though I’m glossing over these tracks, be assured, each is as powerful as the other. If there was any doubt in anyone’s minds that this album wasn’t a contender for the heaviest (and best) of the year, they will have been put to bed by now.

Still, there is one more…

Take a really deep breath, grit your teeth, tense those muscles, and be mentally prepared to be hit with the kind of force that will leave you seeing stars. That Marrow comes with dark atmosphere, a hardcore infusion, eccentric instrumental moments of melodic flair, and a chorus that can be called anthemic in a laughable way, makes it so very special.

This is Collapse. This is Grief Ritual. This is one of the finest things you’re going to hear all year. No matter your mood, you will be come back to this time and time again.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Grief Ritual – Collapse Track Listing:

1. Spiral
2. Recursion
3. Gnaw
4. Bile
5. Consumed
6. Fault
7. Artifice
8. Calcify
9. Swine
10. Putrefy
11. Marrow




Links

Website | Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram

Author

  • Owner/Administrator/Editor/Writer/Interviewer/YouTuber - you name it, I do it. I love gaming, horror movies, and all forms of heavy metal and rock. I'm also a Discworld super-fan and love talking all things Terry Pratchett. Do you wanna party? It's party time!

Grief Ritual – Collapse (Church Road Records)
  • The Final Score - 10/10
    10/10
10/10
Sending
User Review
9.9/10 (1 vote)