Review & Full Album Premiere: Grin, Acid Gods
Posted in audiObelisk, Reviews on May 29th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
Berlin-based duo Grin release their fifth full-length, Acid Gods, this Friday, May 30, through their affiliated label, The Lasting Dose Records. Yes, it’s been about 15 months since they unveiled Feb. 2024’s Hush (review here), but there are two of them, they’re partners, they’re DIY in recording and releasing and they seem to enjoy what they do. Maybe if you wrote songs like these you’d be prolific too. I don’t want to be mistaken for holding the quick turnaround against them. Life is short. The more the merrier.
Plus, let’s say you take Acid Gods — certainly the most methodical Grin album to-date; it feels like there’s a master plan at work sound-wise, but it’s directed toward individual-enough ends that it’s a challenge to say where it’s all headed — in combination with Hush, 2023’s Black Nothingness EP (review here) and 2022’s Phantom Knocks (review here), as something of a post-pandemic surge. Five releases in as many years is a notable clip, but even before that, 2020’s Translucent Blades (review here) and 2018’s Revenant weren’t exactly centuries apart.
The hard-punch two-piece of Sabine Oberg (bass) and Jan Oberg (drums, vocals, recording), over this time, have portrayed a linear, forward progression that is as gorgeous conceptually as some of the music is nasty. Each outing has had something new to bring to the band’s foundation in punk-metal-sludge-screw-you-this-is-where-we’re-at-this-time-and-it’s-heavy, and the 10-song/37-minute Acid Gods is no different in that, establishing a full depth of tone early in “Black Dye” and rumble-pummeling to various degrees from there on.
One hears shades of Crowbar‘s Kirk Windstein in Jan‘s raspy delivery this time out, whether that’s in “Nocturno” early on or the Godfleshier “Slivers” later or even the penultimate “Nebulas,” which is under two and a half minutes and works at a thrust that makes me think the title is a reference to the band Nebula, but still sounds more like Grin than anybody else. Of course, as alluded above, Acid Gods also sets itself to broadening the total context of what sounding like Grin means.
In Grin and the alter-ego bands EarthShip and Slowshine, the Obergs are no strangers to exploration, but by the time you get a Grin record,
that’s all been hammered out. In Acid Gods as much as I’ve ever heard in Grin‘s output, Jan is producing as well as performing. The later wash in “Drag Me Down,” spacious and cut through by the vocals, gives a sense of the how that applies to the ambience throughout the album, which moves physically and never dwells too long in a single piece, is unapologetically rocking by the time “Nebulas” and “Heavy Dew” close out, and gets there via the suitably maddeningly catchy chug of the instrumental “Wild Eyes.”
Part of what has separated Grin from their related projects, however, is the force of impact in the material. Black Nothingness — guess what? — was pretty dark. So was Hush. Acid Gods is more spacious; it gives more room for the listener to find their own place in the songs, to follow the overarching groove even as Grin are bashing away. “Crystals” ends up with a post-doom nod that is denser than water yet still manages to float, while the subsequent “Unshut” is arguably the meanest they get, with a harsher vocal, a declarative roll and culmination that the brash “Beneath the Altar” could’ve hardly hinted toward earlier on.
There’s dynamic in them-there riffs, which is hardly new. That five albums deep Grin have laid out such a clear creative growth that, if so inclined, you can chart in a timeline from one record to the next, is pretty cool. For nerds. They’ve never been an act to espouse analog gear or vintage methods in a bid for authenticity, and they’re not really that style of band, but listening to Acid Gods, the growth in Grin feels likewise thoughtful and organic. The band are conscious of their material, the moods, the shifts, the way songs speak to and complement each other, but beneath that, there’s the exploration of craft that’s ongoing in their songwriting.
Thus far, that’s seen them become the kind of band who can offer something different to their audience each time out while working around the same core foundation. It’s brought them to this place, this time, and one would hardly expect them to rest here for all that long, but Acid Gods is a noteworthy marker on their broader journey in sound.
As always, I hope you enjoy. PR wire info follows under the player below:
Grin, Acid Gods (2025)
GRIN – ACID GODS!
“Acid Gods” drops on May 30, 2025, via The Lasting Dose Records.
Listen to the first single „Nocturno“ right now and pre-order your copy here: https://grincult.bandcamp.com/album/acid-gods
With Acid Gods heavy psych-doom outfit GRIN re-establish their unique position on the intersection between modern sludge and stoner doom metal. The intensity of the riffs, the boldness of the vocals, the heaviness of the bass and the detailed crunch of the production. Every GRIN album will have you wondering if this band can get any heavier (or better) and the answer is always YES!
Tracklisting:
1. Black Dye
2. Nocturno
3. Drag Me Down
4. Beneath The Altar
5. Crystals
6. Unshut
7. Slivers
8. Wild Eyes
9. Nebulas
10. Heavy Dew
All music written and performed by GRIN
Recorded at HIDDEN PLANET STUDIO / Berlin
Produced, mixed and mastered by J. Oberg
Drawings by Dawid M. Piprek
Design & Layout by Caspar Orfgen (DAEVAR)
📸 @vrohdo47
S. Oberg – Bass Guitar
J. Oberg – Drums, Vocals
