No one ever accused Grief of being a thrash metal, speed metal, or grindcore band. In the thrash, speed, and grindcore fields, bands are known for insanely fast tempos; Grief's sludgy doom metal, however, brought extremely slow riffs to the metal underground. The band was heavily influenced by Black Sabbath, and doom warriors Saint Vitus have often been cited as a primary influence. Another valid comparison is Candlemass, a New Wave Of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM) powerhouse that loved ultra-slow riffs and, like Grief and Saint Vitus, had a very dark, gloomy outlook. But Candlemass and Sabbath, for all their heaviness and intensity, were quite melodic and musical -- Grief, on the other hand, was jagged, noisy, harsh, and brutally dissonant. Lead singer Jeff Hayward favored the sort of tortured, throat-shredding, screaming vocals that were quite common in death metal/black metal and grindcore, and that risk-taking combination of grindcore-like vocals and slow, Sabbath-influenced riffs made Grief one of the more interesting alternative metal bands to emerge in the early ‘90s. Because Grief's slow riffs were so Sabbath-minded, the band fared well among fans of stoner rock -- Sabbath-minded riffs are quite common in the stoner rock field. Grief, in fact, had a big influence on stoner rock. Although Grief itself wasn't really stoner rock per se, headbangers who appreciate stoner combos like Eyehategod and Orange Goblin have generally been receptive to Grief's work. And Grief, which enjoyed a small cult following, obviously laid the groundwork for Sourvein, another band that combines slow, Sabbath-influenced riffs with a death metal-ish vocal style.