Grave : " Out Of Respect For the Dead"

It's the eleventh album from the Swedish Death Metal vets. Along with Entombed they helped hone as sound that bands have been trying to emulate ever since. Its not until they slow down for "Flesh Before My Eyes" that they really get my attention. Its good old school death metal, no doubt but I caught the best of that back in the day, so I want to hear where a band is going from there. Granted I was listening to more Entombed than Grave then, so these guys are newish to me. They are fairly straight forward. Where most bands hit you with every thing they got on the first song then you are waiting to see what they have from their Grave drags this out into the second song, though the third has the most powerful groove yet. "Plain Pine Box" doesn't dig into any new subject matter, but they have a great guitar sound and the riffs to this one make the most out of it and the drums sound like they are right in your living room.

They get into the same old grind at times and seem to work better at mid paced gallops or slower. They lyrics change from dead to undead as they growl about haunted houses on "The Ominous They".  The lumbering doom laden moments are of course in my opinion going to be some of the better ones. There is not a whole lot of what gets called d-beat. At times they have more in common with Obituary than with Entombed. This is obvious on the more pounding sections of "Redeemed Through Hate" which also has the first guitar solo that stands out. If there were others they must have been buried in double bass.

When the groove drops down into the bass line of "Deified" this is the album hitting its high point.Even when the storm of double bass roars in the keep the groove until the blasting end section. 'Trail of Ungodly Trades" is just run of the mill death metal. They are good at it , but it's nothing special until they slower breakdown where he is chanting "Summoning the dead". They close the album with "Grotesque Glory" is has a very deliberate stomp, which finds the band in their best form. This song seems to be about zombies. There is a lot of groove to this album at time which keeps it's dark and grisly vibe moving forward. If you are a fan of the band I can only imagine that this is what you want from them, and it's an impressive display of power and at times even songwriting so I'll round  this one up to an 8. It comes out October 16gh on Century Media.