GRAVE - "THE DARK SIDE OF DEATH" (Old School Sverige Death Metal on "CENTURY MEDIA RECORDS" via a corporation with the german "LEGACY MAGAZINE" in 2012 on CD)

GRAVE - "THE DARK SIDE OF DEATH"
("Century Media Records" & "Legacy Magazine"; CD):

Okay, yesterday or so I reviewed a surely still young local Death Metal band and thought and said that they should better do some homework about the background and the meaning of the music they want to play and now today here's a review of a great new possible starting point for them to do so. And anyhow, now comes a review on a great Death Metal record. I first listened to GRAVE in the mid 1990's and my experiences were with their masterpieces "INTO THE GRAVE" and "SOULLESS", two brilliant Death Metal albums rotting down to us from Sverige, to be named in one row with classics that had been created by DISMEMBER, ENTOMBED and UNLEASHED, for example. But somehow GRAVE always stood a little bit too much in the dark background so that also in the glorious heydays of Sverige Death Metal they were always or mostly named in the second row of the silverbacks of this kind of (Death) Metal behind the three above mentioned legendary bands. Maybe this was because they were always too well earthed and too rotten in their music without any somehow ''scenester glamer'' and without going too much in the flow of somewhat somehow ''modern trends'' and stayed always true to their old school roots, who knows, but why ever they were and pretty sure still are mostly named in the second row it was always somehow heavily unjustified and so I am really glad to see them being finally back in action again. And they are damn much heavily into command again as well. This little CD contains all in all eight songs and is a teaser of or a appetizer for their brandnew studio album "ENDLESS PROCESSION OF SOULS" and came as a free garnish of one of the last issues of the german Metal music magazine of the name of "LEGACY", so maybe you have it already if you are interested in it or you will maybe have a hard time of still finding it somewhere. Or just by the new proper album right from the start. However, after I have my copy I don't care about it that much about it, haha;-). We get two brandnew songs, the grim and great and also pretty Crustcore influenced anti-christian "PASSION OF THE WEAK" and the brutal slasher "PERIMORTEM", then also a very strong cover of the old ASPHYX evergreen "VERMIN", and then also five older songs in total, two from their I think pretty much 25th anniversary gig  in Stockholm in 2011, the two ones are "IN LOVE" and "EXTREMELY ROTTEN FLESH", as well as the three already classicks "MORBID WAY TO DIE", "UNHOLY TERROR", and "TURNING BLACK". The five old songs are well chosen and should be well known, the cover tune is done very strong and totally manages to catch the morbid sick doomy crushing atmosphere of the ASPHYX original and transforms it nearly perfectly into something pretty own by GRAVE themselves. And then the most important stuff, the two new songs, and this two ones totally rule. "PERIMORTEM" is a brutal mad thrashing Death Metal slasher with a heavily rotten atmosphere and some nice SLAYER-esque guitar shredding riffs and totally filled with aggression and sick brutality and also coming with a very cool refrain arrangement, damn good stuff. You have to go nuts on it. "PASSION OF THE WEAK" then is even a little bit stronger, deep down rotten to its deepest core and full of mad raging nicely somehow Crustcore-ish aggressive and sinister atmosphere, a total brutal sledgehammer in the form of music and again also offering even more commanding groove parts and a great nearly somewhat sing a long combinable refrain arrangement, a truly great song, morbid and sick intense tight atmosphere, and a heavily intense pure rampage track that takes no damn fucking prisoners. Expect tons of heavy, brutal, dirty and aggressive shredding guitars without end, charismatic throaty guttural brutal slightly more shouted than just pure grunted lead vocals, mean and angry distorted buzzing bass playing, and thundering massive drumming, as well as musicians totally in command of their instruments, and that also know how to write fresh, interesting and grapping songs full of everything mercyless old school Death Metal the Sverige style needs to convince, and this done damn great and really fresh and exciting. Well, well done guys. On top of it we get typical rotten necro and anti-christian lyrics, a totally great Old School Style artwork, nice short linernotes, and a very powerful yet damn dirty and noisy production sound. With this one GRAVE have convinced me heavily and I think everyone into old school real pure dark and sinister Sverige Death Metal will be made curious and hungry for the new GRAVE full length album by this nice little appetizer album. Great shit!!! (9 of 10 points)

(http://de.myspace.com/gravespace)