Lord Grief
The Ancient Path (Demo CD) 2004 None
Lord Grief hails from Boston, where he has have created his own kind of utterly depressive funeral doom. The most original part is perhaps the vocals. Where many bands would have resorted to growls, he instead use deep, mournful, clean vocals. Not even Barry White sings this deep. The only other place that I have heard such a voice is on Aarni's track; 'Transcend Humanity'. Within the funeral doom genre it has thus far been uncommon with melodic bands. Lord Grief defies that tendency with strong keyboards and beautiful guitarplay. Strangely enough, this seems to make the depressive music rather... comforting? Perhaps the best way to describe it is as if the music makes being depressed into a pleasant state of being. The demo has a tendency to be somewhat anonymous, but one track stands out. 'A Broken Dream' is more intense than the rest. The demo is generally good, but that one is clearly my favourite. It brings the essence of their music to another level and brings great promise of any future release. 'The Ancient Path' would probably be of most interest to fans of bands like Forest Of Shadows or Erg Noor, which are perhaps the most similar bands. It might be a bit too special for many, but everyone who fancies slow, melodic doom metal should try this anyway.	1. Mired In Sorrow 2. Stifle My Compassion 3. A Broken Dream 4. Stone Of Pain Approx. 27 minutes
Reviewed by: Arnstein H. Pettersen
An Abyss of Loss (Demo CD) 2006 None
Two years have passed, but Lord Grief remains the same. Nothing about the musical arrangement has changed since 'The Ancient Path'. The tracks are no worse and no better on this second demo than on the first. This means that everyone who has the first demo knows exactly what is coming and already knows whether they like this one or not. Lord Grief is not really a project name, but an artist name since this is the solo project of a guy calling himself Lord Grief. The deep vocals are in accord with the name. They remain superhuman while no majesty or joy can be detected. It really does resemble the mourning god. It might strike some of you as odd that one of the tracks is in Russian, especially since the grieving master comes from Boston, MA, USA. 'Я Вас Любил' (pronounced "Ja Vas Ljubil") is a poem by Russian author Alexander Sergeevich Puskin and means "I loved you". With the mournful music it's not hard to understand where this is leading. The title of the demo is, after all 'An Abyss of Loss'... Whether or not remaining the same is a negative trait or not, I'll leave to the listener to decide. I really liked the first demo a lot and while I was hoping for some progress, I'm still very satisfied with the sound of this. Because of the short duration of both demos, the amount of music is no more than would have been on a single full length anyways. As in my last review of him, I will recommend those who like melodic funeral doom to check him out if you haven't already.	1. Trust in Misery 2. Я Вас Любил 3. Death of Agony 4. The Forgotten Legends Approx. 27 minutes
Reviewed by: Arnstein H. Pettersen