ALBUM REVIEW: Grief Is No Ally – MAVIS

For some people, grief is a comfort – a reminder of the love they have for someone who died. But for others it is nothing but a harsh and painful reminder of someone who should still be here. This seems to be the view of German metalcore quartet MAVIS, who have named their debut album Grief Is No Ally. Forming in 2019, the band were hotly-tipped to become the next big thing off the back of the few concerts they managed to play before the COVID pandemic shut everything down, and now they are finally set to take the world by storm.

Metalcore is a genre that can sometimes feel overstuffed with copycats, but MAVIS throw the rulebook out of the window for the most part. Instead of relying on the formula of screamed verses, sung choruses and a heavy breakdown, some of the songs, like opener Insight, just go for almost all screamed vocals, with only a few sung backing vocals. The track in question is a little overrun with an instrumental breakdown that does go on for a little too long, but the rest of the song provides a brilliant opener.

And there are different takes on metalcore throughout the album. Whether it is the synth-wave beginning of Calypso or the rage-induced Tortured Land, which follows a little more closely in the footsteps of traditional metalcore, this album has something for everyone. Hollow Eyes twists the listener down a completely new path as it verges into some form of electro-deathcore/rock song. It shouldn’t work, and yet it does.

A lot of this is thanks to the production. Each song exists in its own world, but also contributes to the album as a whole. The only issue is some of the songs do lose momentum as they are quite long. For example, Monsters is almost four minutes, which isn’t exactly ages, but it becomes rather repetitive as the lyrics are monotonous and it ends up seeming to drag on for longer than it actually does. Thankfully, this is a rare occurrence, and the album is shaped far more by songs like Limerent, which combines country and metal to create a fun and upbeat track, and the euphoric and anthemic Closer To The Sun.

The pacing is generally quite slow and steady, allowing each song to sink into the listener’s bones and really be appreciated. Both the aforementioned opener and the album’s closer Marcescence are just over five minutes long, which brings things into a perfect circle. The latter sounds almost identical in vocal and musical terms to the former, which means that when the album loops back to the start, it sounds indistinguishable to the end.

Overall, Grief Is No Ally is an intriguing album that mostly rips up the rulebook of metalcore and forms a near-perfect debut. MAVIS mix other genres that don’t usually get mixed with metal, such as country, and it works. The production means that each song works on its own and as part of a whole, and aside from a few length issues this is an excellent debut from an exciting new metalcore band.

Rating: 9/10

Grief Is No Ally is set for release on December 15th via Arising Empire.

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