Minnesota based GRIEF COLLECTOR is a Doom Metal band whose members represent a lot of experience in the Metal genre, specifically the vocalist Robert Lowe who is from many bands including SOLITUDE AETURNUS and CANDLEMASS."From Dissension To Avowal" has an interesting concept attached to it.  The album is supposed to take you on a journey through the five steps of experiencing grief.  Each song is one of these steps: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance.

The first track, "A Prelude To Grief," is a minute or so long interlude with clean guitar tones.  It definitely captures the tone of the subject matter but is too simple to be anything more than a distraction to the first proper track. "Eyes of Fog," opens with big riffs before Lowe;s enter the song.  His voiced has aged very well as he sounds better than ever.  He retains that clean wail, that is a little theatrical and slightly operatic.  It works well for this type of Doom, for sure.  The chorus to this song is catchy as hell but musically it just isn't every interesting.  Certainly the riffs have what a Doom fan needs but it sounds more like paint by numbers instead of something I want to hear over and over again.

The first few minutes of, "Consuming Indignation," is more of the same but does get interesting towards the end, mainly because of the scathing guitar solo but everything else just treads the tepid waters.  That is a how the remaining few songs are—one or two interesting parts but surrounded by uninspired music. Considering the subject matter and the talent involved, I am disappointed I don't like this album more than I do.  At just over thirty minutes in length, this is considerably shorter than most concept albums.  Of course it is always quality not quantity that matters but I feel added length could really help the album.  This is a really involved concept to sing/play about so there really needs to be room for these songs to breathe, as it were.  I figured an album about these five different stages would give the listeners a varied journey where every song adds a new dimension.  Although the songs are decent, they are all pretty much done the same way....a good way but basically the same song over and over with each one having one decent part to it..   I did feel the importance of the subject matter through the lyrics but musically speaking I wasn't moved.

There has been a ton of great Doom albums released this year and while this one isn't a bad one by any means, it also isn't interesting enough to hold my attention for very long.