“Tightrope walk a fine thread through this abattoir world.”
2025 rolls around to find Britain deep in the throes of neo-liberal decline. Successive governments nurture an austerity that can almost legally drive. They’re too timid to appear the least bit generous, lest the markets even wince, while the capitalists borrow from our futures to stoke their next crisis. Daily life for the average Briton feels continually squeezed, as we struggle to remember the last time anything got better, and recall a hundred where everything got worse. Even when the government changed in the middle of 2024, a fair assessment suggests this is as ‘good’ as it will get. The next pack will swing us back to the right, further accelerating capitalist free-fall with the Earth and its people paying the ultimate price. Grief Ritual will have spent the past three years working on Collapse, but take no pleasure in saying “told you so”.
From this context, Collapse competes to be one of the angriest modern hardcore records of our times. It connects the dots between the discontents of today, each track highlighting a different disharmony in brutally disharmonic fashion. “Bile” declares the climate crisis as a “capitalist symptom”; “Gnaw” calls out the scapegoating of migrants and queers (“they don’t think of the human simply trying to survive”). On “Fault” they contrast the riches of bailed out bankers and the monarchy to public services in collapse, or worse, sold off (no doubts to collapse anyway, the final bill handed back to the people). The slip towards authoritarianism does not go unnoticed – no prizes for guessing the subject matter of “Swine”. A miserable atmosphere is inescapable on Collapse, with some tracks giving in completely: “Recursion” searches for a way for individuals to thrive in the present conditions, finding only “sorrow looping at the centre of a labyrinth” as the mental health crisis rages quietly in rotting rentals.
Grief Ritual’s sound on Collapse goes toe to toe with the recent Heriot and Nails records. The most punishing elements of industrial, crust and black metal are distilled for prolonged combustion on every track. ‘Chainsaw’ is a very relevant buzzword as the guitar tone bring us within the blades themselves. It’s that magic touch of grindcore guitars where the fuzz has so many serrations that it becomes both sharp and smooth. The harsh vocals are given the very centre of the mix, engrossing and delivered with total command. Backing vocals hit with a more shrill register and features from Harry (Burner) and Rachel Aspe (Cage Fight) bringing some essential variety. The record is consistently strong, if lacking in absolutely essential moments within its forty minute runtime. For my appetite, a bit more variety would go a long way.
As hard as all this goes, the ultimate purpose of Collapse is made clear through its politics. Heavy music’s themes often pass us by as vocal delivery overrides diction, but you won’t miss the point here. And Grief Ritual are not just here to moan – they have solutions. We do not happen to wake up in these conditions; the systems we are tied to have been constructed to, at best, stagnate, and at worst, oppress and kill. “Artifice” bids us to “Cut all ties to these bastards / Rise up and take charge”, and the industrially influenced “Consumed” includes calls to “defenestrate” those responsible for the climate crisis. The final words of the record call not for reform, but the deliberate and eponymous Collapse of systems of conscious harm. If you find yourself repelled by the content, you’re not just disagreeing with Grief Ritual. They voice a discontent which echoes far beyond the UK’s heavy scene. And if you feel ‘gatekept’ from it as a result, they’ve succeeded. Keep hardcore political.
7.5/10
Collapse releases on the 31st January through Church Road Records and can be pre-ordered here.