REVIEW: Mastiff - For All the Dead Dreams

MASTIFF have never been a band concerned with comfort, but For All The Dead Dreams feels like them actively daring you to meet them at their absolute breaking point. Over a decade of weaponising spite has shaped the Kingston Upon Hull quintet into something uniquely caustic within the UK’s extreme music landscape, and this latest five-track barrage proves they’ve not mellowed with age, if anything, they sound more invigorated by the idea of total obliteration. It’s the kind of record that seems to sneer at the listener for even attempting to endure it.

Their live reputation has long been the stuff of lore, the sort of band you go to see once and then spend the rest of the night blinking through tinnitus, unsure whether you’ve witnessed a gig or a controlled demolition. Having torn through festival stages at Bloodstock, Damnation, Incineration and DesertFest and matched their intensity with the likes of Conan, Iron Monkey, Cult Leader and Raging Speedhorn, MASTIFF have grown into a touring phenomenon driven by pure malice. That same energy courses through this release, captured with terrifying precision by Joe Clayton at Nø Studio and sharpened to a rusted edge by Brad Boatright at Audiosiege. If their music previously resembled a sledgehammer, For All The Dead Dreams is a concrete drill bit plunged straight into the skull.

Opening track Soliloquy acts almost like a warning shot, the kind that lands directly between your eyes. JIM HODGE’s vocals are as venomous as ever, but the real weapon here is the interplay between guitarists PHIL JOHNSON and JAMES LEE-ROSS. Their riffs grind and scrape like heavy machinery tearing through rebar, setting the tone for the record’s grim brevity. Where Deprecipice was blunt-force trauma, Soliloquy feels calculated, a precise incision that prepares you for the deeper wounds to come.

The shift into Rotting Blossoms is where the comparison between tracks becomes stark. Where Soliloquy is measured and intentional, Rotting Blossoms is pure acceleration, a headlong dive into Nails-esque violence that barely gives drummer MIKE SHEPHERD space to breathe between blasts. It’s the sound of decay set to motion, collapsing in on itself with every passing second, yet the band stays frighteningly tight. Anyone familiar with MASTIFF’s tendency for whiplash tempo changes will find plenty to savour here, but this track in particular highlights just how much more feral they’ve grown.

Decimated Graves is arguably the EP’s centrepiece, not because it’s any less savage, but because it feels like the band stretching into a different shade of bleakness. DAN DOLBY’s bass tone becomes an anchor dragging you through mud-thick sludge passages that momentarily echo earlier MASTIFF releases before detonating into hardcore that would sit comfortably beside Harm’s Way. In comparison to the frantic cruelty of Rotting Blossoms, this track feels heavier in a different way, not faster, not more chaotic, but crushingly oppressive. It’s MASTIFF at their most atmospheric, if your idea of “atmosphere” is being trapped beneath three tonnes of industrial waste.

The emotional sucker punch comes with A Story Behind Every Light, a title that hints at something almost reflective, though reflection, in MASTIFF’s world, still arrives wrapped in barbed wire. Here the band momentarily loosens their grip on speed in favour of tension, letting riffs ring out into open space before snapping back with more force. HODGE delivers some of his most tortured vocals on the entire record, and the song becomes a study in how MASTIFF weaponise restraint. When compared to the immediacy of Soliloquy and the pulverising stomp of Decimated Graves, this track grounds the EP with a grim sense of humanity, or at least what’s left of it.

Closer Corporeal then ensures that any shred of hope is unceremoniously stamped out. If Soliloquy was a warning, Corporeal is the execution, delivered with a violent efficiency that calls back to Gatecreeper’s most hostile moments. The guitars churn with mechanical malice, the drums collapse into a barrage of falling debris, and the entire band seems intent on ensuring your final memory of this EP is feeling physically smaller than when you began. Compared with the other tracks, Corporeal is the purest distillation of MASTIFF’s mission statement: short, savage and absolutely unforgiving.

At barely 15 minutes, For All The Dead Dreams could have risked feeling like an interlude between larger statements, but instead it lands like a cinderblock from a great height, immediate, destructive and impossible to ignore. MASTIFF have always dealt in intensity, but here they refine it, condense it and unleash it with horrifying precision. It isn’t just another chapter in their catalogue of misery; it’s them baring their teeth and snarling, “Hold my beer.”

Brutal, efficient and utterly uncompromising, this is MASTIFF at their most dangerous.

Score: 9/10

For All the Dead Dreams was released on 24th October 2025 via Church Road Records.

Words: Mia Gailey

Photos: Mastiff