Gridlink’s relatively brief reunion left grind freaks worldwide hungry for more, and I can safely say that I was among them. But fear not! Barren Path is a new grindcore band featuring nearly every member of Gridlink save Jon Chang, with drummer Bryan Fajardo (Cognizant, Noisear, Triage, Trucido) and guitarist Takafumi Matsubara (Birth and Loss, ex-Mortalized) recruiting fellow session Gridlinkers Mauro Cordoba (Maruta, Shock Withdrawal) and Rory Kobzina (Bea$ters, Lorelai) to form a new project along with vocalist Mitchell Luna (Maruta, Shock Withdrawal). Those expecting Barren Path to be a strict and seamless continuation of Gridlink’s final hour may be disappointed, but the technical mastery and unrelenting intensity of the members’ previous project is on full display on Grieving.
One of the most striking differences between Gridlink and Grieving is the latter’s dense death metal style, in both composition and production. Grieving is not the mournfully melodic yet brisk ballet performed on the strings by Gridlink’s Matsubara and Kobzina, although some tracks like “Lunar Tears” feature fleeting moments of that approach. Rather, Barren Path’s Matsubara and Kobzina have captured the primal energy of chunky deathgrind riffing while elevating its complexity. The overwhelming majority of the songs on Grieving lurk in the lower register, and the tones the guitarists achieve are more reminiscent of the scooped mids of the death metal of yore than the compressed, trebley production of Gridlink's Coronet Juniper (2023). Aside from the death metal influence, tracks such as “Isolation Wound” and “Horizonless” employ a thrash attack so fierce that it should serve as the sole impetus to revitalize Combat Records.
Despite the impressive agility and technical proficiency demonstrated by Matsubara and Kobzina on Grieving, Fajardo nearly steals the show with yet another unimpeachable grindcore drumming performance. Rarely does he reduce the speed of his percussive assault to anything beneath “breakneck.” His lightning-fast, snare-heavy fills tracks such as “Whimpering Echo” and “No Geneva” are executed with razor-sharp precision even while performing at tempos most grindcore drummers can only dream of playing at.
If the above descriptions are any indication, there is very little space to breathe on Grieving. “Celestial Bleeding” offers a brief respite from the uncompromisingly intense and dense. The croaking, otherworldly voice speaking over a bed of soft guitar feedback seems to be pondering existential malaise, but the individual words are difficult to make out as they are awash in delay and other effects. Given that the next track is entitled “Lunar Tear,” there may be some thematic connection between the two, but the strange and somewhat incongruous 45 seconds of “Celestial Bleeding” are over before you can say “grindcore,” and “Lunar Tear” wastes no time in resuming the aural pummeling.
In many ways, one could think of Barren Path as the grindcore yin to Gridlink’s yang, but, aside from doing a disservice to both bands, that statement doesn’t tell the full story. It’s clearly difficult to consider Grieving outside of the context of Gridlink’s near-immaculate legacy, but there is no question that Barren Path are forging their own exceptionally fertile path in producing some truly remarkable grindcore.