Originally written by Ty Brookman
After 6 years of slumber Sweden’s Grave rise from the dead with their latest death sludge ensemble entitled, Back from the Grave. Making a formidable name for themselves in the early nineties Grave has continually proven they are indeed a solid as fuck metal outfit. Sporting one of the year’s heaviest guitar-crunch-o-doom tones falling only second to Bloodbath’s truly award winning 2002 meat-fuck monster crunch, Back from the Grave trudges along at a mid-paced death metal romp-of -grind crushing the weak and suffering through misery. Although Back from the Grave lacks the splendors of pure technical prowess the more than apt chomp of bludgeon spewing from the guitar amp quickly proves the album’s worth. Working the slow methodical push,Grave proves that to embody sheer heaviness you can leave the speed at home and pursue the crush through savvy finesse.
With a monster production of low end and swaggering beats of oomph I found myself oddly lost within the simple but affected combination of groove and grind that can found throughout this whole album and in all actuality to be somewhat enlightening as opposed to the utter chaos of intensity which is slowly but surely becoming the standard of Millennium Metal. Don’t get me wrong because there is always a need for speed but at times the laid back factor of fucking boom can be just as appealing. The attack within is best described as having your insides ripped out slowly piece by piece instead of a quick and downright painless disembowelment which utterly leaves the deed of death hollow with no time to savor the moment of the kill. Leads fall few and far between within B.F.T.G. with an easy comparison to Slayer’s very own numbskull extraordinaire Kerry King’s sloppy ass styling of heavy on the whammy and light on the skill but to Grave’s credit they fit well. Lyrically nothing to astonishing either, but more than worthy of this whole album’s all around standard. Let’s face it the album isn’t going to astonish fans of metal as much as it will just fill the void. However with that said I still find this release worthy and most enjoyable.
Bottom Line: This album will not raise the hair on the back your neck, you won’t be standing on the nearest mountain proclaiming Grave as true visionaries in a time of musical blindness but what you will get is an absolute solid fucking death metal release and for that I have to highly suggest you pick this one up if you can stray for just one moment from the never ending blastbeats and non stop riffage. Grave is back, for how long who can fucking tell.
