Deathgrave : "It's Only Midnight"

Meeting at the intersection of grind core and death metal this band is comprised of dudes from Graves at Sea, Casket Blaster and Owl. The first song is a raw grimy stab at old school death metal. When they are in this mode of playing , the riffs are thick and nasty. It feels pretty good. The grind core side of what they do throws them into the spastic throes of chaos on the second song, though they recover from that bout and find their way back to a more song focused death metal. The fact that these songs are around the three minute mark, keeps them more focused on resolution and taking you somewhere. Even with "Tony's Deli' which is more gurgle with gore. Even here the speed filled blasting feels like a cop out when they have shown they are capable of wielding mean riffs with cool dissonance. In three minutes the cover a great deal of ground riff wise. 

"A Sewer Runs Through Her" is a great song title , but the vocals are gurgles so low at first it is hard to make out the lyrics. Though he goes through a few registers of snarled , almost like Goatwhore. Though this is not as dark as Goatwhore by any means. "the Resigned" is more cut and dry , raw death metal with more of a punk attitude. "Resur' wreck'ed" is another great song title that gets somewhat wasted on very straight forward death metal, which for the first minute and a half of the songs proves to be more punk than it is dark. It shifts some when a more deliberate riff kicks in and the rest of the song is colored with varied shades of chaos. "Rats are Back' opens with bigger more deliberate riffs, that more impact that when they are blasting. They do speed up but it carries more of a thrashing gallop. There is a more melodic section in the middle of the song, where a guitar solo would go if they are wasting their time with such things. 

"Slurring Sermons" rages of the same vitriol that fuels most of this album. A more ominous break down and a little more sonic weight in the overall pound can be felt.  "Your Rulers Are Here" has a more commanding death metal feel, At under two minutes , they make the most with the time they do spend on the song.  "Scratch Sniff Peel Snack" opens with more of a grind core tinged punk feel and slows down midway into it's one minute and forty seven seconds into a darker pulse. While it's a cool riff, there is more to the writing of "Lonely Streets". A crusty punk apocalypse still possesses the death metal current. The drummer lets you know he is serious on this song. The vocals drop into a gurgle. Once again they take a shift into a more powerful deliberate intention of crushing you. The last song is just over a minute and a half. It finds it's groove among the grinding gore. I like what they do here, as it's dirty and heavy, though nothing really unique that we have not heard before is happening so I will round this down to an 8. This is being dropped on TanK Crimes.