by Paul Kott

These crusty doom legends turned in a sledgehammer to the face with Miserably Ever After. Since way before it was cool to play slow music for fans of the hyper speed worlds of death metal, grindcore, power violence, and crust, Grief have been pounding out slow, doomy, heavy brutality with screaming vocal stylings that borrow heavily from the early grindcore roots of the early members. Laying out the groundwork early on for other early-'90s bands like Cavity, Iron Monkey, Floor, and Eyehategod, Grief had a challenge to live up to -- to attempt equal the strength of each previous album. Well, this album did that, and more. Grief can be credited with heavily impacting the doom scene as well as being inspired by it, with the influence of Black Sabbath and Los Angeles doom kings Saint Vitus more than apparent. And with a telltale Vitus cover ("Angry Man") and a bleak landscape of alienation, drug and alcohol abuse, misanthropy, and betrayal throughout every song, each chord is like a nuclear explosion of depression.