Grieving are a band whose music encompasses nineties post-hardcore, emo and indie-rock / power-pop.
This quartet hail from Cambridge, that city of perspiring dreams or Silicon Fen as it`s nicknamed, famous for its world class University and more associated with punting.
Their debut album `Everything Goes Right, All At Once` is released this month and the title is a positive play on a quote from The Room where – instead – all at once, everything goes wrong.
We are introduced to the album with the amusingly titled `Brian Emo` and it`s an immediate headrush. We aren`t led in gently by the hand but are almost hit in the head with the musical equivalent of a sledgehammer. A powerful not aggressive but forceful aural assault. A quite thoughtful offering that appears to say that everything isn`t always as you perceive them to be and isn`t always positive. We enjoy a further reflective musing with `10 x Michelangelo` and although it`s only ninety six seconds long there`s a lot packed into it.
`Pristine` is as the title suggests fairly pure, a fast paced pounding and thumping slice of post punk with vocals that seem to reflect a certain frustration. We have a pretty mediative submission in `My Friend, The Ghost` which may be about a companion who is out of sorts and being there if they need you. There`s a quite overwhelming heartbreaking texture to the music and vocals that mirror the possible subject matter.
`Tarpaulin` according to bassist Jack Hurst, is about “personally approaching a sense of self-doubt, and accepting that certainty in life is rarely exactly that.” There are some intricate and complex guitar chords and an interesting rhythmic beat underlying this number which does have it`s intense and energetic surges on route. I was unfamiliar with the next songs title `Wiseau` so a web search suggested that Wiseau is a name that means counsellor, perfectionist, and compassion based on numerology or the Urban dictionary suggested as laughing/chuckling randomly and inappropriately during sexual intercourse. Take your pick but it may be neither and the track is a fairly anthemic quite absorbed discourse.
`Start Young` is bass driven with a pulsing drum heart beat and vocals that are almost yelled at times, it takes a short timeout at around the two thirds mark before resuming it`s palpitating pathway. We return to a more yearning outlook with `Ownership` and it has a kind of edgy full on heavy post-punk ambience with lyrics that are quite questioning.
`Puritans (The Weight)` features ex-Lonely The Brave vocalist Dave Jakes, now fronting Interlaker, as a guest on the final third of this number. A number that has a sense of probing or searching about it. There`s a similar sensibility about `The World Still Turns` which features Stephen Davidson but it`s much more mid paced and musically has a deep seated introspection about it.
The album concludes with `Old Wives` and it has a real sense of apprehension as if it`s being anxiously held in check from exploding. A real feeling of nervousness although it does let rip in the last eighty seconds before almost drawing itself in again at the death.
Frontman James Parrish, guitarist Ned Wilson Eames, bassist Jack Hurst and drummer Matt Simper who make up Grieving have delivered a cracking debut in `Everything Goes Right, All At Once` with it`s melodic catchy hooks and thought provoking lyrical content. There`s plenty of variety to suit all tastes within this forty minute offering.
If you are a fan of bands such as Fugazi, Hüsker Dü, Buffalo Tom and Swervedriver, this band will certainly float your boat. There`s no mournful sorrow here just joyful optimism.
Rating 9/10
