Grief, Christ - Make me Wish I Couldn’t Beg (EP 2025)
By Flork
Poland‘s shadow-cloaked darkwave scene has long been rooted on a balance between raw emotion and industrial precision. Make Me Wish I Couldn’t Beg, the latest EP from Grief, Christ, is an appropriate example of this, as leads the listener through ethereal soundscapes that reverberate with the ghosts of early Peter Murphy and Floodland-era Sisters of Mercy. Over five tracks, the band crafts a hauntingly intimate experience that evokes the feeling of watching a silent, black-and-white film from an era long past, with striking cuts and contrasts that leave insufficient time to finish reading the subtitle before moving on quickly to the next scene.
What I like about this recording is that each track builds upon a foundation of heavy reverb, hypnotic basslines, as well as mournful vocals that seem to drift through a fog of distortion. Take Sinner Messiah, for example, the opening track, which sets a brooding tone with its ritualistic pacing. And like every track on Make Me Wish I Couldn’t Beg, it too is draped in thick ambient production that pulses with mechanical heartbeats and spectral synths. Other tracks, like Safekeeping and Child of Hate, introduce a more structured, beat-driven momentum, with the industrial elements fully emerging. Here, the production remains murky, perhaps even intentionally, since it allows the melodies to emerge like beacons in a storm, yet highlights the band‘s darkness and penchant for the macabre.
In my opinion, Blue Blood Makes the Roses Grow So Red could be considered the emotional centerpiece. Its echoing synths and ethereal vocals give it a cinematic, even a funereal quality, evoking the romantic despair of old, black and white movies. The closing track Push Me Back shifts gears with a more urgent, pulsating rhythm, making for a stark contrast to the EP‘s earlier haze. As it spirals into a wall of noise and decaying echoes, the listener is left with a lingering sense of unease, kind of like the final moments of a bad dream that refuses to fade.
And the Florkman‘s prognosis? Released (perhaps deliberately) just a couple of weeks ago on Valentine‘s Day in 2025, Make Me Wish I Couldn’t Beg is a stark counterpoint to romantic idealism, kind of reminding me that love and longing often fester in the same wounds. I give this mini-album high marks, since it is both nostalgic and forward-thinking. I love the band’s signature ambience of melancholy, which is infused with modern, cinematic intensity. Grief, Christ definitely embody the restless spirit of darkwave and the pioneers of industrial music.
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