Grieving – Everything Goes Right, All at Once

Stress means the pivot of everything going right or wrong is swayed finely. February was mired by broken hope and this overwhelming urge to stock up on soup, sit next to the boiler for your source of warmth and wait for the ground to swallow you up. No more. Take the outreached hand of Grieving and steady yourself for the months to come. The black clouds are lifting and Everything Goes Right, All At Once, signals that everything is, yes, you heard it, going right. Not just right, but it all comes together like a finely tuned plan. This risk and gamble you sought four months ago is slowly beginning to pay off. As is the right of any finely made plan, and Grieving can hold a candle to their title – everything does go right for this monumental effort. 

Opener Brian Emo has enough punk energy and spirit within to shake off the cobwebs wrapping around your brain. Everything Goes Right, All At Once does warn it is not all good news but feels like a shot of adrenalin, a foot-tapping steadiness to it and the wild percussion charms. Steady qualities continue, the instrumental lift Grieving can give your head and heart on 10x Michelangelo is a wonderful slot of being awake and aware. The ships which crash into the tide of your ego, the mind shifting away from the wreckage and the constant in and out stream of stress are rattled by Grieving and rallied against with the best intentions at heart. Floaty riffs and exceptional work are key to this one – the instrumentals may feel drowned out by the spotlight-winning guitar work on Pristine.  

Wiseau is surely not a reference to The Room mastermind though it does give Grieving a sense of consistency. They open with some slick guitar work and pull it back briefly to let the lyrics wade through before crushing its exposure under the heady weight of percussion blurs and steady instrumentals. It is consistent but does tire a little in the midsection when the lighter attempts come through. Start Young feels like the diluted punk tones of yesteryear, but again the instrumentals are the heavy lifting here. There is a sense of feverish placement, titles which offer no insight into the real thoughts of a lead singer powering through with slick instrumentals. Grieving has classic punk on their hands and strikes well.  

Consistent enough to work, certainly. Ownership has those essential, spirited licks which always signal the tight signs of punk quality. The booming UK music scene enlists another sharp set of minds, their hands wrapped well around the country’s outcry against how low we can go. Rightly so. Why do we not feel apart of the world around us? Because we are crushed under the boot. Grieving resolve to highlight this as clearly, as harshly, as possible. Feel the weight of the world. As heavy as it is, there are few silver linings to power through. Music is, naturally, one of them. Puritans (The Weight) marks an essential blend of getting through these dark days, their Foo Fighters-style repetition of being nearly there, those glorious highs and the liberation of a free life, are not far off. Grieving and their listeners can only hope so.