Band:	Morag Tong
Album:	Grieve
Style:	Doom metal, Sludge metal, Stoner metal
Release date:	October 2023

01. At First Light
02. Passages
03. A Stem's Embrace
04. No Sun, No Moon

A band named after a (fictional) order of assassins might be expected to exhibit a level of subtlety. As it is, while the lumbering walls of distortion conjured up by Morag Tong offer little in the way of discretion, there is more than just pure volume on offer when it comes to Grieve.

Morag Tong is a name I discovered back in 2019 when they played support slots at two gigs I went to in London, once for Bong and once for Ufomammut. Each performance left a solid positive impression on me, solid enough that I perked up and took notice when I saw they had a new album released. I have two abiding memories of those 2019 shows, one being that their drummer had sole vocal duties (which seems to be something of a trend in British sludge/stoner circles, considering the likes of Tuskar and Kushthulhu as well), and the other being the dense heaviness of their tone and riffing. It’s the kind of heaviness that can struggle to fully translate to album form, and Grieve does slightly lose some of that live impact, but the band compensate for it in other ways.

Grieve is one of those albums that lurks somewhere in the middle of the stoner/sludge/doom Venn diagram, although of the three styles, sludge is probably the least present. It is the album’s shortest song, “Passages”, that veers closest to this style, as Morag Tong add an extra grimness and venom to the relatively warm stoner fuzz that takes up much of the album’s runtime. Still, even on this song, after a fairly bleak opening, the band venture off in pursuit of a more melodic approach, something perhaps reminiscent of Yob’s Our Raw Heart. On the other tracks, the band frequently opt out of distortion altogether, incorporating some psychedelia into the equation.

“At First Light” is one such example, opening with more muted, cleaner motifs; it also features a first appearance from the vocals, which, in contrast to the bilious roars across most of Grieve, take a cleaner form, with a mix of singing and more spiritual chanting. Still, while this opening is lighter than “Passages” and much of the rest of Grieve, it’s about as fast; Morag Tong are very consistent in ambling along at a slow, doomy pace. In fitting with this slow underlying crawl, “At First Light” evolves gradually, first bringing doomy fuzz into the equation, then a slightly livelier solo, and then dialling up the extremity ever so slightly with darker chords and harsher vocals.

Coming out on the same day as Plog’s Eucharist, an album that demonstrates that stoner doom bands need more than just slow chords to be interesting, Morag Tong manage to keep me engaging throughout the sonic milieux they craft on this album. Part of that comes from a production that, while not delivering the outright heaviness of a Dopesmoker or a Conan, still packs a solid punch, but part of it comes from having riffs that are both better than those of Plog’s, but also at times surprisingly melancholic for stoner doom. Those more delicate melodies scratch a similar itch to what Methadone Skies managed on their Different Layers Of Fear record, and it’s an approach that I enjoy.

The quiet opening to “At First Light” is just foreshadowing of what’s to come later. “A Stem’s Embrace” dedicates the entirety of its first third to a quiet introduction, one comprised of steady percussion, muted distortion, delicate clean guitar motifs, and subtle spoken word. When the transition does come, the grimmer riffing that comes afterwards does feel slightly disconnected to this introduction, but the guitar solo that comes not long afterwards works well to elevate this song, as does the post-rock tremolo texture that pops up later on to nicely contrast what is otherwise a descent into gnarlier territory from the remainder of the band.

These first three tracks represent half of the album; closing song “No Sun, No Moon” takes up the other half. A 20-minute song is bold, and Morag Tong pull out all the stops; opening with a long almost ambient psychedelic intro, some of the guitar tones teeter on the edge of Pink Floyd territory before going in more of a psych-rock direction that eventually leads into the expected stoner doom. Even after the first dose of distortion, however, they shift back into another quiet psychedelic jam; the dynamics on this song almost owe themselves to post-metal, and there are elements of the songwriting here that remind me of the early OHHMS EPs, but also the clean guitar work in these softer sections is likely to appeal to fans of Weedpecker’s more mellow moments. The extremes of the contrasts in intensity on Grieve might not work for everyone, but I find them to be quite satisfying, particularly on “No Sun, No Moon”.

I think Grieve’s biggest strength is that range; I’d say, taken separately, neither the sludge/stoner doom nor the softer, more psychedelic parts are necessarily at the level of the best bands in each niche, but being able to balance out the heaviness with evocative guitar melodies or mellow jams makes it a solid overall experience.