Artist: Crumbling Ghost
Album: Four
Genre: Doom Folk / Psychedelic Rock / Folk Rock / Doom Metal
Release: 7 August 2026
Label: New Heavy Sounds
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What happens when you take centuries-old folk traditions, drag them through the darkest corner of the British countryside, plug them into a wall of amplifiers and turn everything up until the local sheep start looking concerned?
You get something remarkably close to Crumbling Ghost. ๐๐ฟ
With Four, the London outfit return after a lengthy absence carrying an album that sounds simultaneously ancient and completely alive.
This isnโt folk music with a token distorted guitar slapped over the top.
Nor is it simply doom metal with somebody occasionally waving an old folk melody around.
Crumbling Ghost genuinely inhabit both worlds.
Traditional storytelling sits alongside colossal riffs. Psychedelic passages disappear into eerie folk arrangements. Delicate vocals hover above instrumentation that occasionally sounds capable of demolishing a small cottage.
Itโs weird.
Itโs heavy.
Itโs deeply British.
And we absolutely bloody love it.
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Track Listing
- Bows Of London
- Bill Norrie
- Valtz Efter Tor Lohne
- Lovely Joan
- Gower Wassail
- Last Of All Sleep
- The Unquiet Grave
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Track-by-Track Review
1. Bows Of London
The doors creak open.
Rather than immediately burying everything beneath enormous guitars, Bows Of London allows the folk foundations of Crumbling Ghostโs music to establish themselves.
Then the weight starts arriving.
Traditional melody gradually collides with psychedelic heaviness, creating something that feels simultaneously familiar and completely alien.
An excellent opening.
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2. Bill Norrie
Here come the riffs.
And theyโre bloody enormous.
Bill Norrie demonstrates exactly why describing Crumbling Ghost simply as a folk-rock band doesnโt really work.
Thereโs serious doom-metal weight underneath this thing.
The band let everything breathe rather than rushing towards the next section, allowing every guitar chord to land with maximum impact.
Heavy doesnโt always mean fast.
Sometimes it means massive.
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3. Valtz Efter Tor Lohne
Time to disappear down another musical rabbit hole.
Thereโs an almost hypnotic quality here as Crumbling Ghost lean deeper into traditional instrumentation and melody.
It feels ritualistic.
Strange.
Ancient.
The sort of thing you could imagine hearing while wandering through some suspiciously misty woodland before realising Google Maps stopped working twenty minutes ago.
Probably best keep walking, butt.
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4. Lovely Joan
One of the albumโs most fascinating transformations.
Traditional storytelling remains at the centre, but Crumbling Ghost reshape the surrounding musical landscape.
Rather than simply performing an old song with heavier instruments, they change its emotional character.
The result feels darker.
More threatening.
Almost cinematic.
This is exactly how reinterpretation should work.
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5. Gower Wassail
Right then.
GOWER.
Youโve wandered directly into Riff Report territory now, mun. ๐๐
Thereโs something particularly satisfying about hearing this traditional Welsh wassailing song absorbed into Crumbling Ghostโs strange musical universe.
The arrangement carries a ceremonial quality that feels perfectly suited to the source material.
Old traditions.
Communal singing.
Dark winter evenings.
Massive amplification.
All thatโs missing is someone emerging from the mist carrying a Greggs bag.
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6. Last Of All Sleep
And suddenly everything becomes strangely beautiful.
Last Of All Sleep provides one of the recordโs most emotionally absorbing moments.
Thereโs a dreamy quality to the vocals while the instrumentation moves with wonderful patience underneath.
Itโs melancholic without becoming miserable.
Heavy without needing to flatten you.
One of those songs that quietly creeps underneath your skin.
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7. The Unquiet Grave
Come on.
With a title like The Unquiet Grave, you already know weโre not finishing with sunshine, confetti and everyone skipping merrily into the distance. ๐
This traditional ballad is tailor-made for Crumbling Ghost.
Love.
Death.
Grief.
Supernatural consequences.
British folk music really was metal before electricity existed, wasnโt it?
Crumbling Ghost transform the song into an enormous, haunting finale where ancient storytelling and modern heaviness become almost impossible to separate.
A fantastic ending.
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๐ฅ
The Breakdown
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Vocals
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Beautifully understated and haunting. The performances serve the stories rather than attempting to overpower them.
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Guitars
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Absolutely filthy when required. Massive doom riffs emerge naturally from folk melodies rather than feeling bolted onto them.
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Rhythm Section
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Patient, deliberate and wonderfully heavy. Every rhythmic decision helps build atmosphere.
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Atmosphere
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Ridiculous.
Close your eyes and youโre halfway up a mist-covered hill wondering why everyone nearby is wearing medieval clothing.
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Arrangements
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The traditional source material is treated respectfully without ever becoming museum music.
Thatโs the magic.
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Standout Tracks
๐ฟ Bows Of London
๐ Bill Norrie
๐ Gower Wassail
๐ Last Of All Sleep
โฐ๏ธ The Unquiet Grave
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The Riff Report Verdict
Four isnโt an album that fits comfortably into a neat little genre box.
Good.
Those boxes are boring anyway.
Crumbling Ghost operate somewhere between folk club, doom-metal basement, psychedelic freak-out and ancient storytelling circle.
And somehow it all makes perfect sense.
The real brilliance lies in how naturally the old and new coexist.
These traditional songs donโt sound like historical curiosities being respectfully dusted off for educational purposes.
They sound alive.
Dangerous, even.
Crumbling Ghost understand something important about folk music: these songs survived because they dealt with enormous human experiences.
Love.
Death.
Violence.
Loss.
Community.
Fear.
The supernatural.
Sound familiar?
Thatโs basically heavy metalโs shopping list.
So when Crumbling Ghost introduce enormous riffs and psychedelic weight into these stories, it doesnโt feel like sacrilege.
It feels weirdly inevitable.
Then thereโs the Welsh connection of Gower Wassail, which naturally earns an enthusiastic YESS MUN! from Riff Report HQ. ๐๐ค
But even without our shameless Welsh bias, Four would remain a fascinating record.
Itโs heavy music that feels genuinely connected to something older.
Not retro.
Not nostalgic.
Older.
Like somebody unearthed these songs beneath an ancient stone circle and discovered theyโd been waiting centuries for someone to plug in an amplifier.
THE RIFF REPORT RATING
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5/5 GUITARS
Ancient stories. Monstrous riffs. Psychedelic weirdness.
Crumbling Ghost have taken traditional folk music somewhere wonderfully dark on Four. Itโs strange, haunting and gloriously heavyโand thereโs genuinely nothing else quite like it. ๐ฟ๐๐ฅ๐ค
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