Grief Of War reviewed
Grief Of War
A Mounting Crisis . . . As Their Fury Got Released
(Prosthetic)
If global distance covered really validates a musical trend’s worth, or at least strength, this whole thrash revival thing must be the real deal, ’cause Japanese kids are all over it.
Maybe it’s unfair to accuse Grief Of War of jumping on the bandwagon, when in reality they formed in 2002 and had already cut a demo, WAR, by the following year. A Mounting Crisis was actually released in Japan in 2005 through a local label, but Prosthetic is now giving it a proper release outside the group’s home country. Grief Of War aren’t the cream of the crop of this blossoming thrash movement, but they certainly aren’t the bottom of the barrel either. They’re probably the most Slayer-influenced of their peers, even though the album gets off to a questionable start on “Hatred Burns” by brazenly stealing Megadeth’s “Devil’s Island” riff. From there the song, and the album, are pure speed-laced Reign In Blood napalm. Credit frontman Manabu Hirose for singing everything in English despite the fact he sounds slightly, at best, comfortable with the language, resulting in sluggish lyrics like “blind blind/freedom total fake/blind blind/out of fear” from “Blind From The Facts” (and probably the misspellings in liner-note lyrics). Most of the time what Hirose is yelling is of minor concern because he and the rest of the group rip through everything with enough fire and brimstone to compensate. But like a teenager learning to drive a manual transmission, the ride gets shaky when GOF let off the gas, a la the clumsy finale, “The Judgment Day.”
But a lot of people thought Slayer were clumsy when they slowed their roll on South Of Heaven as well. And look at them, they’re huge in Japan.
— Trevor Fisher
