Come To Grief, if you didn’t know, are led by guitarist Terry Savastano, who’s ex of Disrupt and, more tellingly, Grief. Apparently the band was formed with the intention of playing early Grief songs, but they’ve since come to record original material. For me personally Grief were a high (or should that be low?) watermark when it came to sickeningly depressive doom metal, which means there’s a lot to live up to if you decide to transform your retro-minded tribute act into a going concern. Thankfully, the brilliantly-titled ‘Take Me In My Sleep’ manages to draw from the same old poisoned well, with the band grinding out morbid, Sabbath-on-downers riffs and pairing them with vocals that sound like roadkill being scraped from asphalt.
Fistula, as if in homage, plug into their slower, less hardcore-blasted side for their contribution … a gnarled, rotten-hearted thing called ‘Contusion’. As ever, the vocals are putrid and vomit drowned while the riffs stink like a sack of meat left out in the sun. An odd near-metalcore moment hits at the three and a half minute mark, but rest assured the band’ll coldcock you if you even think of raising an eyebrow.