BIG|BRAVE are one the most potent experimental acts on the planet. The Montréal band’s collision of metal, post-hardcore and folk, one-of-kind, reaching the apex on their excellent 2024 release, A Chaos of Flowers. For all its inventiveness and eternal power, at the time it felt like one of those generational underground releases that would be a key reference point in decades to come. And two years on, that consensus remains.
It felt like a moment where BIG|BRAVE’s hard work had paid off. Led by Robin Wattie and Mat Ball, the band have been one of the few underground acts to consistently tour across Europe (and the U.K.) throughout this decade, somehow circumventing the economic pitfalls of a post-Brexit world through tremored and tonal mind-fuckery. Their story, one of the few victories in an independent creative space blowtorched by capitalism.
BIG|BRAVE have used these brutal forces as fuel to burn. Many of the social and political themes that underpin BIG|BRAVE’s remit, whether it be economic plights, race, gender or belief systems that have this world on the brink, a blast zone where they have fought fire with fire.
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And it continues on in grief or in hope where BIG|BRAVE are as large-hearted as ever. With the absence of drummer, Tasy Hudson and now with once auxiliary member My Disco’s Liam Andrews joining on a permanent basis, the band’s tenth full-length release finds them taking minimalism to radical places.
There’s always been a fearless poeticism in Wattie’s work, and alongside Ball, they form arguably the most dynamic songwriting collaboration of the decade. Such as the emotional weight of their songs, it’s hard to fathom how they’ve lasted this long. But there’s been no sign of burn-out. For every A Gaze Among Them and Vital, pillars of roaring menace, there’s been more contemplative moments like A Chaos of Flowers and, of course, in grief or in hope.
Once again shifting into wonderfully obscure shapes, through pure sonic heft, Ball’s unique tonal explorations and knotty textures are intrinsically his own. Without drums, it puts a greater emphasis on both his and Wattie’s guitar work, which is as sharp and precise as ever, starting with the gruelling opener, what may be the kindest way to leave. A song where mind and body are divorced, as Wattie’s trademark cries curl from the speakers with a brittle energy.
Sonically informed by Low’s Double Negative, the shape of shame is where of metal and slowcore intersect. Wattie, exploring the spiritual malaise (“Teething from the tension that all this control creates”), and it’s not the only moment that echoes Low’s magnum opus. An uttering of antipathy sees Wattie barrelling deep into the vortex with autotune as her vessel, (“God only blames me”), while the closing title track galvanises in grief or in hope with scrambled sonics pushing the mind into new corners.
Elsewhere, some of BIG|BRAVE’s best moments await. The thunderous the ineptitude for mutual discernment, howling with treble akin to a war zone. Wattie’s voice, like a phoenix rising from the ashes. It’s slow, meditative and trance-like.
Following the tender and hypnotic holding tongue, taking its queues from the eponymous song of the band’s 2014 release, Feral Verdure, on verdure Andrews’ bass echoes are a void-like hum. And alongside Ball and Wattie’s battered and scarred guitars, it’s BIG|BRAVE channelling their inner-Neubauten.
Then there’s skin ripper. With more flay than rip, its ferocious build-ups embody maximum results from a minimalist approach that proves cataclysmic. Which is essentially what in grief or in hope is.
It’s also is a reflection on BIG|BRAVE’S past, as they forge new paths for the future. Thematically, it’s what the band has been building towards, and while traditionally inward and aloof, on in grief or in hope Wattie projects like never before. These songs, a shedding of new skin, and shaped differently, they move into new space to breathe. In grief or in hope, yet another triumph.
In grief or in hope is out now via Thrill Jockey. Purchase from Bandcamp.
