Experimental metal band BIG|BRAVE have announced their new album, in grief or in hope, and have revealed lead single “the ineptitude for mutual discernment” in advance of the record’s June 12th release. Stream it below.
Marking their 10th full-length, the album showcases a deepening move toward the melodic without sacrificing their maximalist drone aesthetic. The folk sounds the band began to explore on Leave None But Small Birds, their collaborative LP with fellow experimental metal group The Body, introduced melody to their already harmonically rich material. That progression continued through their subsequent recordings, culminating here in a more deliberately melodic fashion.
Guitarist/vocalist Robin Wattie said of the album, “I wanted to explore catchy, melodic phrasing weaved throughout the intensity of the instrumentation and droney chord changes. All that I could reflect on was grief and hope; death and life; cause and effect; shared experiences of being a human person.”
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First single “the ineptitude for mutual discernment” takes on a relatively straightforward three-chord structure without sacrificing their trademark oceanic sound. Waves of noise and feedback still cloud the music, but Wattie’s vocals are presented more centrally. The band feels less like a nebulous if potent emotional cloud and more like a traditional band, albeit one with an experimental soundscaping approach to melody.
Watch the music video, created by guitarist Mat Ball with color correction by filmmaker Stacy Lee, below.
in grief or in hope begins a more conscious backward look for the band, now over a decade old. The track “verdure” echoes both the title and key melodies from the title track of their 2014 debut Feral Verdure, while the lead single recapitulates lyrical elements present on their 2015 sophomore release Au De La. The group has already been known to be deliberately intertextual — see the abstract flower imagery of the albums A Gaze Among Them, nature morte and A Chaos of Flowers. Even the all-lowercase song title aesthetic is only as recent as nature morte, which also shares that same theme with the album title. It is a deliberately additive move.
The group will soon be embarking on a string of European dates in the lead-up to the release of the album, starting on May 24th in Utrecht, Netherlands, and running through June 3rd in Berlin. According to the press release, North American dates will be announced soon.
in grief or in hope Artwork:
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<p><strong><em>in grief or in hope</em> Tracklist:</strong><br />01. what may be the kindest way to leave<br />02. a shape of shame<br />03. the ineptitude for mutual discernment<br />04. holding tongue<br />05. verdure<br />06. skin ripper<br />07. an uttering of antipathy<br />08. in grief or in hope</p>
<p><strong>BIG|BRAVE 2026 Dates:</strong><br />05/24 – Utrecht, NL @ EKKO<br />05/25 – Amsterdam, NL @ OCCII<br />05/27 – Saint-Imier, CH @ Toxoplasmose Festival<br />05/28 – Basel, CH @ Kuppel<br />05/29 – Torino, IT @ Jazz Is Dead<br />05/30 – Piacenza, IT @ Desert Fox Festival<br />05/31 – Ljubljana, SI @ Channel Zero<br />06/02 – Poznan, PL @ Pawilon<br />06/03 – Berlin, DE @ Berghain</p>
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