Album review: Grief Ritual – Collapse

In September 2022, Grief Ritual’s Jamie Waggett penned a piece for Kerrang! excoriating the Tories for their malign influence on public health and the economy. It’s fair to say that two-and-a-half years and a change in government have done little to lessen the vocalist’s ire. Collapse begins with Spiral, which finds Jamie asserting that ‘Austerity stops us from living properly.’ This is just the opening salvo of a 40-minute assault on the ills of the modern age, expressed through powerfully heavy music, rageful and empowering in equal measure.

These eleven songs combine chugging hardcore with the sinister delivery of extreme metal. Their relentlessness makes for a claustrophobic but compelling listen, occasionally throwing in different influences like the industrial-hued beginnings of Consumed and Swine, or the wider scale of Marrow’s ominous dynamics. And while the vocal stylings on offer include aggressive bellowing and blackened malevolence, Jamie also switches to spoken word interventions to clarify the targets in Grief Ritual’s sights.

Broadly speaking, Collapse is concerned with the harm caused by capitalism, from war and the climate crisis to public service cuts and inequality. Recursion hones in on the denigrating effects of a broken system on mental and physical health, while Gnaw repudiates anti-trans attitudes. Marrow ends the album with a call to dismantle the entire political system.

Grief Ritual aren’t mucking around or wasting time on diluted sentiments; these are real-world concerns, not escapist fantasy. And while there is an undeniable catharsis in being smacked in the face by such potent metallic hardcore, there’s also a challenge: here’s what’s wrong with the world – what are you gonna do to help?

Verdict: 4/5

For fans of: Nails, Leeched, Burner

Collapse is out now via Church Road