BIG|BRAVE - In Grief Or In Hope

I think there's little doubt that metal has definitively shed its skin, and that the very essence of the heavy sound has somehow transformed, moving from the aggressive speed of its origins toward depth. Canada's BIG|BRAVE are among the bands to have made perhaps the most intriguing and personal journey of this kind, alongside labelmates The Body, growing steadily more intimate and innovative, building their tracks on a deep scaffolding of sound and manipulation.
The new album marks an important turning point for the trio, with compositions that are ever denser and more guitar-oriented, and above all with the complete removal of the percussive element (it's unclear whether the sidelining of drummer Tasy Hudson is permanent or just temporary). To help thicken the sound, guitarist/vocalist Robin Wattie and guitarist Mathieu Ball brought in a longtime friend to complete the trio: Australian bassist Liam Andrews (MY DISCO, Aicher, Spillings). The musician has actually been part of the band's live lineup for some time, but this marked his first time in the studio with his new/old partners in crime.

After two extraordinary albums like "Nature Morte" and "A Chaos Of Flowers", the release in 2025 of an interlocutory, atypical album like "OST" had actually planted some doubts about the trio's future. Those doubts have thankfully been dispelled by the arrival on shelves of the Montréal band's tenth album, titled "In Grief Or In Hope", described with (excessive) grandiloquence in the press kit as "a creative vision of electroacoustic sound and emotional storytelling, an infinite wealth of overwhelming distortion and devastating beauty."
To avoid any misunderstanding, don't expect a work on par with "A Chaos Of Flowers", but this new album cements the three musicians as creators of a recognizable, deep, solemn sound, one whose dynamics move ever further away from metal's last remaining traces.

Every track is a microcosm of distortion sharply at odds with the delicacy of its themes and of Wattie's voice. The trio's instinctive progressions are made even more vivid by a recording captured essentially live in the room, courtesy of the trusted Seth Manchester, by now a master at harnessing in the studio the imposing, distinctive sound of their live shows. On the nature of her singing, as hieratic as it is deep, Wattie has said: "I wanted to explore a different way of expressing myself, more engaging and melodic, interwoven with the intensity of the instrumentation and the shifts in tone. I couldn't think of anything but pain and hope; death and life; cause and effect; the shared experiences of being human."
Their approach to sonic deconstruction, built on layers of guitar, bass and drones, is already evident from the opening of "What May Be The Kindest Way To Leave", not unlike (allowing for the due proportions) what Low achieved on their masterpiece "Double Negative". Even with the percussive element entirely absent, the tracks carry an impressive physical force, born from the density of the sound and the constant tension between silence and saturation.

"A Shape Of Shame" has an almost "pop" quality (take that term with a grain of salt...) that, despite being built on distorted instruments, manages to lift the voice recounting a restless night in which "in ears blood is gnashing reminding me that I'm still alive". The album's first single, "The Ineptitude For Mutual Discernment", works as a kind of powerful synthesis of the trio's singular approach to structural distortion and emotional complexity, one that, as in several later tracks, plays on the contrast between the jagged waves of guitars and bass and Robin Wattie's resolute voice. The instrumental, ethereal "Holding Tongue" works perfectly as a mid-album interlude, before "Verdure" recalls, even in its title, the 2014 debut "Feral Verdure", as a kind of reflection on the whole journey taken up to now.
And while "Skin Ripper", vocals aside, sounds like it could be a track from Ball and Andrews' side project Spillings, "An Uttering Of Antipathy" even introduces vocal effects and light electronic manipulation that, far from being intrusive, actually heightens the sense of alienation and pent-up pain. The title track closes the record with a question as simple as it is potentially devastating: "When does one feel the most, is it in grief or is it in hope?"

No more assaults, no more drums, just a monolithic sonic scaffolding built from guitars, bass, drones and effects, over which Robin Wattie manages to rise with a voice that is at once powerful, clear and pained, for a final effect as potent as it is, by now, perfectly recognizable and personal.
If "A Chaos Of Flowers" won me over instantly and irreversibly, the new "In Grief Or In Hope" is less immediate in striking those intimate chords right away, but after repeated listens, the strong feeling and awareness remain that the Canadian trio has become an essential, major presence in its specific corner of music and beyond, now belonging to a category entirely its own, suspended between noise and contemplation, between devastation and beauty.

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25/06/2026