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You could sit down and listen to Church Road Records’ newest addition, GRIEF RITUAL, and be blown away by their heaviness, their rage surrounding you within its cyclone of doom ridden metallic hardcore, overwhelmed by Jamie Waggett’s caustic vocals, and yet be completely blindsided when you hear their soft spoken voice in conversation. Besides the prominent juxtaposition of their temperament on and off of the stage, Waggett and GRIEF RITUAL have entered the new year primed and ready to release their debut album Collapse. Whilst not being demo’s, they compare the previous EP’s to be closer to that rough and ready feel of on, making the transition to recording their first full length record more like a leap than a small stepping stone.
Waggett recognises the soft-spoken side of themself but it doesn’t take much for them to step on to the other side of the coin “When I get into a headspace when I’m making music, especially when I’m on stage, I find it quite cathartic. So, I try to get the stress, and what I’m thinking about at the time, out through the music.” For GRIEF RITUAL to hit its true potential and to send the most authentic version of their message, Waggett focuses on the hard topics that some tend to avoid. They’re bold enough to tackle an issue, to take on injustice and rise to the occasion, when it feels like outside of hardcore and its adjacents, it’s becoming more common to not speak on these topics in a genuine way.
Before releasing Collapse under the Church Road Records mantle, the challenge seemed to be creating the cohesive body of work that would eventually become a polished piece, whether it was sooner or later, Church Road seem to have provided them with the fuel to bring the project to fruition sooner. “So for Collapse, its themes are definitely anti-capitalism and anti-fascist. Then from those, unfortunately, hideous kinds of things, there’s a lot of things that can come off that.” Touching on anything from the lurking rise of the authoritarian right within the UK to the detrimental amount of queerphobia that is permeating throughout our society. Anything that can fall into the viscous and overwhelming jaws of capitalism belongs within the recording grooves of Collapse.
“It’s all about showcasing how horrific these things have been allowed to kind of run rampant,” Wagget says. Ahead of the release of their Spiritual Disease EP GRIEF RITUAL were hoping for change with the impending demise of the Conservative party and their hopeful replacement the Labour party, however their first six months of leadership has been less than satisfactory. “The Labour Party we’ve got is a centre-right party, which I don’t think does any good for anybody, because it’s essentially just the Tory party that came into power 14 or 15 years ago.” Many felt that a change in power was well overdue – 14 years of austerity will do that – and looked for the Labour Party to be that change the country needed for the better.
Alongside Labour’s rise to power comes a boat load of anti-trans rhetoric from the government themselves, such as the banning the access of puberty blockers – a reversible type of treatment – for trans youth, which is life saving treatment. “Even under the previous government, with the CASS report, where they created a report which was loaded in the side of anti-trans rhetoric by using these think tanks which are backed by white Christian money, which they shouldn’t. It shouldn’t be anything near government, religion and politics shouldn’t be allowed to mix, because they’re not going to create an even ground.” It seems cathartic for Waggett to speak on, they’re completely impassioned when doing so, but in a way that it just comes naturally, not needing a second to even think over the words that leave their lips.
“The fact that it appears to be just being blocked for trans kids and not cis kids tells you a lot about people, like Wes Streeting and what the Tory party actually is,” they make a Freudian slip which at this point can any of us tell the difference between the two? Continuing “sorry, what the Labour Party” they emphasise “is actually mandating, essentially they’re isolating, really a minority group of people who they need that care.” This is what lies at the heart of Collapse, refusal to accept the decisions of a government that seeks only to discriminate and set a precedent of hate towards a marginalised community. Best represented in the track Artifice, a searing and forthright attack on deceitful governments, which feels all the more relevant with the inauguration of Donald Trump and his worryingly swift addition of sweeping policies that take further aim at marginalised communities.
At the root of it all, the bigotry, greed, bravado, is capitalism. Collapse makes sure to recognise that, that this egocentric money hungry power system that has become a playground for billionaires to abuse by enchanting politicians with their money almost like snake charmers. If there’s any way to get you motivated despite this ever darkening hole that we seem to be descending into, it’s by taking notice of people like GRIEF RITUAL and the music they release.
“GRIEF RITUAL has always felt like a hobby that got out of hand, we’ve gotten to play all these cool shows and festivals that we never thought we would. With Collapse I hope it makes us step up a little more and we take it more seriously” they say, then quickly iterating, “not that we don’t already, but we want to be playing to more and more people. I hope that the record is received in a way that makes people want to spread our message.”
Ending on a rather simple note they say “I think it’s really cool to play music, meet people, and visit new places. For me I’ve always thought it can be good if you can influence someone to do that. Hopefully it will inspire people to do that, or if they’re already in a band making a track or two that are more politically minded.”
Collapse is out now via Church Road Records.
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The post Grief Ritual: Caustic Sounds Versus Poison Politics appeared first on Distorted Sound Magazine.
