Artist: Grave
Album: Endless Procession of Souls
Website: https://www.facebook.com/GraveOfficial?ref=ts
Grave hail from Sweden,
which is known for the Gothenburg death metal sound. In Endless Procession of
Souls, Grave has released an album with a production unusual for Swedish death
metal. It has a raw, slightly muffled production. The raw sound doesn’t mean
the album is poorly produced; instead, it gives the album character and grit,
and has a timeless feel to it. (Warning: I could not resist using many
graveyard/death-related similes and imagery in this review.)
The distorted, grim riff of Intro
– Dystopia sets the scene perfectly for the rest of the album. Amongst Marble and the Dead continues
the grim atmosphere, gloom-laden guitars. The pace switches between thrashy and
almost funereal. The vocalist sounds like he was resurrected from the grave;
his voice has a desiccated and decayed sound to it. These vocals suit an album
that kept me mentally wandering around a misty, forgotten graveyard filled with
the sadness of hundreds while I listened.
Irresistible grooves abound – I found it very hard to keep still during
this album; some part of me was always moving, either a foot or my head. Disembodied Steps, Passion of the Weak and Encountering
the Divine are examples of the groovy goodness. In contrast to the grooves
are slower passages which give the listener a breather, and add variety to the
songs.
Besides the vocals, the guitars also contribute significantly to the
graveyard atmosphere. The bubbling sounds they produce most of the time remind
me of thick, primordial tar pits, the graveyards of many hapless animals. At
other times, there are solos which sound like chants, solos which scream and
then end on droning notes and ones which sound like the moans of lost souls. Winds of Chains goes big on the
spookiness, with wind and clinking chains effects in the intro. The droning
riffs on Encountering the Divine are
full of despair.
The fast drum parts are uncompromising and come down upon the listener
in a downpour of acid rain. The slower parts are well controlled. The drums
gallop on Plague of Nations and Epos. The latter two tracks also feature
standout bass guitar work – Plague of
Nations has one of the most sinister (if not the most sinister) bass lines
I’ve ever heard, while the bass solo on Epos
is saturated with foreboding. Epos
ties the beginning and end of the album together very well, with a similar riff
to Intro – Dystopia. The former has a
clear feeling of finality and despair; Intro
was the funeral bell, and Epos is the
final spade of dirt on the coffin.
Before I heard Endless Procession
of Souls, I hadn’t heard any of Grave’s material before. I am very much
encouraged to seek out more of their discography; hopefully their other work
matches the high calibre of this album, which I feel is one of 2012’s most
impressive death metal releases.
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