Imagine for a moment what it would have been like if Tom Araya was of Japanese descent instead of Chilean.   Even though he was raised in California, there is no question that what we today know as Slayer would have been unrecognizable at best.   Instead of the classic Slayer albums released over the years, we probably would have been subjected to albums such as Reign in Brud, to say nothing of the more recent Chrys Erusion.

Japan’s Grief of War sound like they’ve probably spent time listening to Slayer.   In particular, on parts of their 2009 release Worship, vocalist Manabu Hirose sounds a bit similar to Araya during Slayer’s South of Heaven days.   This wouldn’t be a bad thing if the music resembled anything close to Slayer, but obviously that is asking a lot.

Unfortunately, comparing Grief of War to either Araya or Slayer is giving them far too much credit.   For a thrash album, Grief of War doesn’t really even play that fast on Worship.    Melodic guitar lines and repeated pentatonic scales over mid-paced tempos are the formula for most of the songs.   The band also evidently needs to add a fucking tremolo-bar dive bomb going into most of the guitar solos, so it really is almost like traveling back in time to the mid-eighties.   Add some Japanese gang vocals to that and you have an album that pretty much sucks.   With most bands, gang vocals will pretty much send me directly toward the ‘eject’ button.   Throw in some gang vocals with a heavy Japanese accent, and I may very well just smash my CD player.

The Engrish is on full display in the song “Built My Brain.”   After repeated listens, I’m still trying to figure out exactly what the fuck that means.   There’s really nothing that works here.    Everything is very weak-sounding and really not very well done.   One thing that has always made for great thrash metal is how it gets your blood pumping.   The only blood pumping that will happen here is the blood that will pump out of my fucking wrists when I slit them.   Honestly, the one thing I require from any band is simple: don’t be boring. Unfortunately, Worship is nothing but boring.

If thrash is your thing, check out the new release by Warbringer or anything by the zombiecore maniacs Send More Paramedics.   Grief of War will only waste your time and disappoint you.

Review byPile Driver