I saw copies of Come to Grief, Alive, and a Best of Compilation at a shop yesterday, not familiar with the band except that they are sludge/doom band split a couple of years ago, are they worth checking out?

definitely worth your time if you're into sludge. Very good band, I was just listening to Dismal yesterday. One of the best bands to listen to if you're pissed off about life. Theres not many other bands as hateful and pissed off as Grief. I'm really looking forward to seeing them at next years MDF.

All of their stuff is worth checking out but make sure you get Miserably Ever After.

yes definitely one of the best sludge bands ever. Come to Grief would have to be my personal favorite. I can't wait to see them at MDF.

I concur with this opinion. Definitely a band to check out.

I think they're terrible. The music generally maintains the same tempo, the songs drag on, its rooted more in hardcore than doom yet has really slow doom tempos, but the lyrics are fantastic and some of the songs are actually good (ie they aren't monotonous ex: I Hate the Human Race and a few others).

They're unlike any sludge band I can think of. They're more akin to a faster Monarch with a hardcore dude on vocals than any other sludge band.

Edited for grammar and the last paragraph.

I concur with the others. If you like sludge, you must check out Grief.

Grief is splendid. Torso is usually recognized as their best album.

I would agree with this on all counts.

the hardcore incorporated with them doom is what originally drew them to me in the first place. I think its what makes the stand out.

They barely incorporate hardcore into it as much as say Eyehategod's early work or most of Dystopia's stuff. Grief mostly has hardcore-esque vocals than riffs or structure.

Me too, however, each record features one or more very very good songs as well besides the other "boring" ones. I like Torso most with the song "Polluted" where they speed up things a bit, and bang: rule !!!!

Sure, get some GRIEF stuff as soon as possible!

As everyone said, very good sludge, mixing doom metal with hardcore in very subtle ways, creating stuff way darker than any funeral doom band.

Definitely worth checking out!

Some really depressing and powerful stuff here, I have found the lyrics to be very intense, due to the fact that they are just true and very personal mental struggles and anguish of the lyricist personally... very good music as well.

Influential sludge

Oh god yes! Grief is a fantastic Sludge band in my opinion. My personal favorites are Miserably Ever After, and ...And Man Will Become the Hunted. As for what you saw at this shop, I would advise you to get all three if you can afford it, and if that greatest hits is what I think it is, that one is called Turbulent Times, and it's a collection of rarities, from splits and whatnot. Not to mention Grief is a great live, or so I heard from the CD anyway, hehe.

grief are one of my favourite bands check you should definatley check out come to grief and torso and why not try miserably ever after aswell.

I disagree, this band is great. Pure drugged out sludge nightmare. It has its time and place. Many bands owe their careers to them as they've been ripped off countless times.

Who has ripped off Grief?

Who hasn't?

Definitely all those albums are great, but I think TORSO especially has the best over all sonic punch to it. To me they are very stoner regardless.

Iron Maiden.

The entirety of post 1995 sludge, just about.

Name bands.
Hircine: grow up.

I can't because I tend to avoid post 1995 sludge. (Hell, I avoided the whole genre until a few weeks ago). Suffice to say Grief are as influential as Eyehategod, Crowbar, or Iron Monkey.

Sludge bands that are actually worth listening to, perhaps?

If you love slow doom metal with a lot of distortion, you will love them. They have some pretty epic songs on some their albums. I would personally recommend Come To Grief. They are a great sludge metal band, so if you like bands like Eyehategod, Iron Monkey...etc you will love them.

Grief are the definition of sludge as far as I'm concerned. Slow, heavy, hateful as fuck. Repetitive? Sure but what Doom/Stoner/Sludge band isnt in some respect? I'll admit at times they can get monotone and you do have to be in the mood to listen to them but when you are in the mood, Grief does the trick. One of the best bands to listen to when you're not having a great day.

Perhaps, but as I've posted elsewhere I dislike the slow, dragged out, crawling sludge and prefer the more mid paced/drugged up sounding stuff like Eyehategod, Dystopia, Iron Monkey, Crowbar etc.

And it's not so much that they are repetitive, it's just that lots of the time the songs don't really do anything; they mostly keep the same tempo, and there isn't a great deal of variation in riffage either.

The fact that you don't like them doesn't make them any less important for the evolution of the genre.

Funny, not one person has mentioned a band that has been heavily influenced by Grief and I've brought this up several times now.

Here's one: http://www.myspace.com/eyehatelucy

and another: http://www.myspace.com/aogdoom

I did an archive search for "sludge" and I am ignoring all the silly sludge / death metal or sludge / metalcore. Keep looking at the bands labeled only as sludge, or sludge/doom, and you're likely to find many more bands influenced by Grief.

I highly doubt a band just magically garners a reputation for being one of the genres best and most important bands for absolutely no reason. I would be willing to bet that many of the bands of the sludge genre would cite Grief as inspiration in some sense.

Point out where I said they weren't important for the evolution of the genre. The only thing I implied was that the bands that were influenced by them weren't any good in my opinion.

As stated one of the best sludge bands out there. I'm really psyched to see them live on Sunday \m/

Almost 2 weeks after my original post, I returned to the shop and all three cds are still there, picked them up for 30 bux total, will give them a listen next week, I hope they turn out as fantastic as some of you had suggested.