If you look at the Swedish death metal scene you will notice that
Dismember and
Entombed has been given a lot more attention than other death metal bands that had at least the same musical quality. Just look at
Unleashed or
Centinex, all of them has released a lot of good albums but people still don't seem to care about them.
Grave is a band of the veteran league that I think deserves more attention than people has given them so far. Formed by the front man Ola Lindgren,
Grave came to life in the 80's alongside other famous bands that shaped the Swedish death metal scene.
Grave is all about darkness, brutality, aggression and heaviness. Their music can be easily described as down-tuned, hateful and dark catacomb death metal. It actually surprises me that the band has released so many albums despite their limited musical skills. The band actually broke up once but the crew changed their minds shortly after the break up and they released
As Rapture Comes. The band is alive and kicking again and their most recent release is their 8th album
Dominion VIII.
I began to explore some of
Grave's other albums and I finally found an album that I thought was very close to the heaviness and catchiness of
As Rapture Comes. My new favourite
Grave album was
Back From The Grave.
Back From The Grave has some really good traits but also a couple of nasty flaws. The sound production and overall musical content is definitely above average, but the album hardly stands out because of it's repetitive music.
Grave delivers simple but crushing death metal in this album. All the riffs are crunchy and bludgeoning and at times quite catchy as well. The Slayer-influenced guitar solos adds a great sinister atmosphere to the brutal music while the clear but harsh growls adds extra weight. Unfortunately,
Grave's limited instrumental skills does not impress very much, especially not in this album. Many tracks follow the same type of structure and this leads to the dreaded repetitiveness. That is the biggest flaw of them all, the rest are just personal thoughts and opinions about the actual tracks.
Back From The Grave is not an album that everyone will like. People who demand huge musical dynamics and variety will have a hard time getting into this album. But people who are deeply committed to the death metal genre will definitely enjoy this album.
Grave does not fall into the brutal death metal genre but the band can definitely deliver a very heavy punch.
Back From The Grave is not the band's best album but it is not one of their worst either. This is definitely one of the best old-school death metal bands that Sweden has to offer and hopefully more people will get into their music. If you like bands like
Entombed,
Dismember or
Bloodbath then you should check out
Grave.
Positives
+ Dark and forceful death metal
+ Powerful growl performance
+ Great sound production
Negatives
- Uninspired and repetitive music
Recommended Tracks
-- Bloodfed
A great track that actually has some speed. The track is definitely the best track thanks to its catchy and heavy structure.
-- Rise
This track has a bit more advanced riffing in it. The riff content is good and this track has also a quite catchy song pattern.
-- Behold The Flames
The fastest track of the album. Sounds like the rest, except that the riffs here as a bit more groove in them.
Final rating will be a 3.5/5
