As you can likely guess from the title, Metal Of Death / The Advocation Of Murder And Suicide is a compilation of sorts, a rerecording of a previous EP (Metal Of Death) with the addition of two new tracks by this spiked-and-bullet-belted bunch of Californians. These five songs are straight-up old-school metal, along the lines of Celtic Frost, Master and first-wave Floridians like Massacre, whose iconic vocalist Kam Lee makes a guest appearance here. Gravehill are by no means original, or even the best of the batch of revivalist metallers, but they are good at what they do. With only five songs in 19 minutes, Metal Of Death is a short and sweet kick to the stomach, fun and fast and over well before it overstays its welcome.
I haven’t heard the original recordings of the Metal Of Death tracks, so I can’t vouch for any improvements (or lack of improvements) in the quality, but these are simply raw and fast early proto-death (back when it was just a shade removed from thrash). You’ve got some blasting, and there are thankfully some slower moments to break the monotony, and all of it is topped off with a dirty guitar tone and Mike Abominator’s rasping growl. “A Promise Made In Heresy” starts things off with a driving riff that slides neatly into a melodic triplet bit before Abominator’s Cronos/Speckmann vocals kick in. He’s not the best or most distinctive vocalist on the scene, but his voice is ragged and menacing, and it gets the job done.
The album’s highlight is “Ravager,” another track originally from Metal Of Death and the track that features ex-Massacre and current Denial Fiend vocalist Kam Lee. That tune opens with a simple riff, before the guitars drop out and the verses are snarled atop only Thorgrimm’s thrash beat, a simple and catchy little moment that reminds me of Scandinavian death/thrashers Defleshed. The whole tune lasts barely over two minutes, simple and sweet, with no guitar solos, no breakdowns, no frills. (Another favorite moment: the doomy descending opening riff to “Silence,” before the sample and then the chugging thrash part. It’s simple; it’s sweet; and it does get the ol’ head banging…) The biggest problem I have is that there are isolated moments of coolness, but overall, this still retains a touch of that same “been there, heard that” vibe that plagues recordings by all these new vintage-metal bands.
Which brings us to this: like the Krotalus record I reviewed awhile back, this is just another entry in a surging sea of acts dedicated to revisiting the glory days of metal. If you enjoy records by all the bands I’ve already mentioned and you’re in the market for an EP-length homage to them, then here’s one that’s good enough. Nothing spectacular, but enjoyable enough in the moment.
