…and God said nothing is a staggeringly punishing follow-up to the debut album of The Salt Pale Collective. Prepare to be clawed headfirst into hell.
Release date: July 31, 2026 | Independent | Bandcamp | Instagram | Facebook
Three years after becoming completely infatuated with their full debut, I feel yet again sated and fulfilled with the latest six-song drop from The Salt Pale Collective. …and God said nothing is everything I’d hoped for. Whilst the core sound and output of the band hasn’t changed much, they took what worked well in A Body That Could Pass Through Stones And Trees and made it better. The UK band have now been in business for going on five years, with members from across Cumbria and Yorkshire. Their debut EP preceded A Body, another exceptionally good listen that holds up and complements the flow through the three records. The Salt Pale Collective are especially good at layering in cross-album reprises that hit harder than a truck, either through the escalation of harsh vocals, or dialling it right back to dive headfirst into introspection.
In the last album, I felt the band eased you into their sound gradually. This time they’ve given zero fucks. A forlorn choir harmony over subtle effects lulls you into a sense of false security, before the band suddenly collapses a mountain on top of you. The wall of sound is brutal, the vocals so harsh they seem to be brimming with bile. The delivery is as crisp as ever, though, as is the delivery of riffs and drums around them. Straight from the off, you can feel the quality and attention to detail in the mix too; you are completely swamped with music, but the layers are so easily plied apart. “Raised aloft upon the horns of the celestial bull” is frenetic and the heavy section is over almost as soon as it begins, but it sets up the album brilliantly.
The title track refuses to let up, carrying on the brutality of the introduction, but does introduce one of my favourite flavours of the band, the impressive dual vocals. The oscillating clash of harsh and cleans is truly a feast for the ears. The weight always lands more in favour of the harsh, but the impact that the cleans have on the mood, direction, and pacing of the tracks is exceptionally powerful, taking what could be a sludgy-doom-band and elevating them into a bracket beyond their peers. As well, with the tastefully layered orchestral, organ, and choir effects and instrumentation, the band carve out a sound truly unique in the space. Every track feels like you’re battling in an apocalyptic landscape. I’ve climbed up one of my local hills that looks over 40km of the local area – pair …and God said nothing with an epic sunset and you are in sensory heaven.
“Our Pale Madonna” is where you’ll finally get some respite, and also that aforementioned reprise. After yet another strong, very doomy opening, which has an exceptionally harsh vocal section laden with cool effects. As it winds down from that heaviness, though, I always find myself appreciating the drums. The track winds back into a chambery, sombre sermon, where the soft, jazzy drum fills manage to add a Lynchian dark cinema vibe to the music. The drum kit really fills the mix as well, rather than being a small focus point as you find with some metal albums, something that works really well for both soft and heavy sections. The reprise is delivered really well, harking back to “Charnel Plains/Whore Abyss” from thei self-titled EP. Bringing it back makes marathon album sessions even more enjoyable. And considering the albums progressively get heavier and more oppressive from the EP through to …and God said nothing, the reprise being so forlorn and sombre offers a brilliant contrast to the endless waves of metal.
Hands down my favourite track is the insane “Litany for a dying sun”. The first few spins, I couldn’t believe my ears. The way the band have managed to perfectly intersect the cleans against a wall of riffs, saxophones, and choir layers with the weirdest time signatures blows my mind. This is the peak of the sensory experience delivered by the band in the album, in my opinion, delivering organised chaos that yet again stands unique in its sound and structure.
Rounding out the album are two tracks that I feel both perfectly close off the record, but also set it up for what is to come. The Salt Pale Collective have been quite open that they felt they sat on the record a little too long, with three years since the last record, and two since their last release, the split/single “Northern Darkness”. “Ahoy! The black caskets” is the perfect heavy closer, whilst “The stars fade and reel in confusion” edges the album out softly, yet with an outro that really sets up what’s to come…
Over the past month, I’ve been pondering what made me love the previous record so much, and if this one does surpass it. I’ve felt the whole time that A Body has more hooks that pull me in and bring me back, but I think with …and God said nothing you’re saturated with a barrage of movements so unique and amazing to replay. The insane opener, the exceptional reprise and drumming that surrounds it, plus the vocal cacophony which blows my mind.
And what is to come? To my question on whether there would be another single we could add to this review, Dave had this to say:
‘We might make an arty video for another song, but we have an EP, which I reckon we can get finished by the end of the year that I want to put out, so it’s done, and then on to album three. Which I would like to have out before the end of next year, sitting on albums for three years is not my bag anymore!‘
So stay tuned, we’ve got more unbelievably harrowing, sludgey doom on the way.
