ALBUM REVIEW: When The World Dies – Come To Grief

While never quite as well-known as the likes of EYEHATEGOD and CROWBAR for example, New England’s GRIEF were arguably just as seminal in the 90s sludge scene. They took the genre to previously unseen depths of depravity, spewing forth hatred across a prolific run of records. Things first came to an end in 2001, soon after the release of their final full-length …And Man Will Become The Hunted, and while a few on-again off-again tours followed throughout the 00s, the band would play their last ever show in 2009. By 2014 however, they were back in a new form, resurrected by founding guitarist Terry Savastano as COME TO GRIEF. Taking their name from the original GRIEF’s classic 1994 full-length, the spirit is very much the same here. As their debut album When The World Dies proves, Savastano and co. remain masters of all things bleak and miserable.

Following on from a couple of EPs and singles, this long overdue full-length is predictably feral. It deals – much like the original GRIEF – in crushing riffs, tortured vocals, and a generous dose of nihilism and despair. Naturally, this isn’t a record for a sunny day; you’ll find none of the gleeful psychedelia offered by many of the band’s more spaced out stoner cousins here, just a desire to inflict misery on anyone and everyone who comes within spitting distance of their monolithic doom. That isn’t meant as a negative though; on the contrary, COME TO GRIEF’s dedication to despair is exactly what makes them so compelling.

It certainly helps that they keep things moving along nicely across When The World Dies’ 38-minute runtime. There’s often almost a hardcore urgency and rawness here, perhaps the expected result of an inspired team-up with producer Kurt Ballou of CONVERGE. Lead single Life’s Curse is a prime example, providing a slight energy lift after the instrumental opener Our End Begins. It’s a bristling rager, with a relentless riff backing typically throat-grinding vocals delivered by Ballou’s bandmate Jake Bannon. Fourth track Devastation Of Souls is similarly furious, this one insisting on banged heads with a hefty SABBATH-esque groove.

While Bannon makes a second appearance on the record’s sixth track Bludgeon The Soul / Returning To The Void, COME TO GRIEF don’t need much help destroying their own lungs on When The World Dies. Vocalist Jonathan Hébert provides arguably even more bile, his fry screams bringing something of a blackened edge to proceedings. Again, this only adds to the overall extremity and urgency of the record. It means that even the longer and slower tracks, of which there are several, have a real bite to them, a bracing edge that sets COME TO GRIEF apart from some of sludge and doom’s less hurried exports.

Of course, COME TO GRIEF only actually feature two members from the original GRIEF; the aforementioned Savastano, and drummer Chuck Conlon. That should be proof alone of a band wanting to stand on their own two feet rather than coast on former glories, but if you weren’t convinced before then When The World Dies should change your mind. It stands as a complete and compelling work even without any knowledge of the band’s history. This is gripping and urgent sludge made with the experience of veterans but with the fury of a band who are still just getting started, which at the end of the day is pretty much exactly who COME TO GRIEF are.

Rating: 8/10

When The World Dies is set for release on May 20th via Translation Loss Records.

Like COME TO GRIEF on Facebook.