07/10/2020
The very kind folk at The New Releases Show on 4ZZZ have done an excellent review of the new Grieg LP "Detritus" so be sure to heed their advice and order yourself a copy.
Orders have been slowly getting posted out this week, feel free to post 'em and tag us if you're into that.
GRIEG don't give a crap about stuff other bands do, they're happy just to be some of the best heavy music you've never heard of; and, yes, their Detritus smells better than yours. Reviewed by Chris Cobcroft.
- Grieg came together sometime in the early two-thousand-teens, after everyone involved had got fed-up-to-the-eyeballs with doing the things band’s are supposed to do. They put together this new concern with precisely no aspirations beyond making incredibly loud music that they loved and hanging out. Former rockers reliving the glory days isn’t exactly unusual and most of them are boring and rubbish. Grieg, by contrast, are an astute melting-pot of brutal noises, bitingly black humor and skill: they can burn down any rocking hasbeen and a lot of today’s A-listers as well.
They’re low-key 2000’s Brisbane punk nobility, comprising members of Hits and Gazoonga Attack (that’s Tamara Dawn on bass), Undead Apes (John Mercer on guitar), Dick Nasty (Adam “Cuffy” Cuthbert on drums, oh and John was in there too) and finally John Lee Spider and Hateman (the old stomping grounds of vocalist Lance Sinclair). You can throw in No Anchor and A Savage God if you include their old drummer and co-founding member, Alex Gillies and I’m sure I’ve still missed a few bands there.
It’s actually a bit intimidating to write about Grieg, because I came up through the Brisbane music scene directly after most of these folks and still feel like I know half as much about music as they do. To really humble myself I’ll point out that Alex Gillies was a (legendary) music director at 4ZZZ, a role I took on (till it sucked the life out of me) some years later. Running into Alex I happened to mention that I had his old gig, to which he responded “Really? You? Mmm-hmm.” Well, who needs self-esteem anyway?
Certainly you don’t when you have a new Grieg record to enjoy. They’re calling it their second album, after 2015’s Retaliate First, but with just seven tracks, I think we’re in EP territory? Not complaining. Once again, they’re mixing up the styles, starting out in sludge and stoner, moving through thrash, death-metal, hardcore and super-heavy post-punk as well. Even without the short, no-nonsense track times you’d be unlikely to get bored here. The stylistic cavalcade is helped no small amount by Lance’s versatile voice, which moves from yelling to guttural growl to theatrical, ringmaster-style spoken-word with ease. Not that they were ever sloppy, but the chopping and changing rhythms and overall musicianship is that much tighter now and the production speaks less of the rough-as-guts bands everyone used to be in and more of a smooth professionalism; the music is brutal enough, it doesn’t need any help.
There’s less of that self-deprecating Brisbane humour that characterised their first record, especially those titles like An Lismore Graduate or Godnose Is Fu***ng Dead, although fun still pokes its head up now and then, like on the final number Into Oblivion that cuts through a seriously ominous choral intro a-la 2001: A Space Odyssey with someone’s broad bogan blurtation “Aw c***, that’s f***ed!”, like we’d suddenly jumped into Peter Jackson’s Bad Taste. The horror film references may actually be the unifying thread of the record. Be it in chilling piano chord intros, spoken-word monologues by digital ghosts “I am so cold, I wonder if you would know me now?” or titles like Thrash By Night, Make Them Fear or … just the whole record, really: slice out the soundtrack to Mandy (apologies to the late, great Johan Johannsson) and Detritus would work fine in its stead. I can only guess that Lance Sinclair’s passion for and extensive background in b-grade (to z-grade) horror is slowly taking over the band and transforming it into a bloody altar to the hungering star-gods.
Just as if they really were a collection of shadowy cultists, Grieg continues to work away in obscurity and, since that’s the way they want it, it’s unlikely to change. Maybe, however, you too should give up on bands who’re-doing-what-they’re-supposed-to, because the best work that many of them will produce really isn’t quite as good as Detritus.
- Chris Cobcroft.
