Grave

Burial Ground

Regain Records 2010

These tireless stalwarts of the Swedish death metal scene have returned with another exercise in brutality in the form of their 9th full-length album, Burial Ground.  One thing to be said about Grave is they are a model of consistency, both in quality and in stylistic output.  Burial ground is no different.  It is immediately evident on Liberation that they mean business.  Churning, grinding riffs hack and slash in typical "Grave" fashion.  The song's rotten innards settle into a remorseless groove.  Intense and sped up riffs surge like a tidal wave of maggots on Semblance In Black before the track morphs into thick, doomy guitarwork within its core.  On this album it seems that Grave has dipped a little bit more than normal into the speed arsenal found on Into The Grave.  You can hear this on tracks like Outcast, whose overall tempo is constantly straining towards a blast beat, at least until is shifts gears into doomier realms.  My favorite track is Sexual Mutilation with a riff at the 1:55 mark that reminds me of Carnage's Infestation of Evil.  To top of this comparison, the guitar solo sounds like it was lifted straight off of Dark Recollections.  After the dynamic songwriting of the previous track, the pounding tempo and serpentine grooves of Bloodtrail are a little bit of a let down.  However, the album closer and title-track is an atmospheric and menacing beast, full of hate-filled grooves.  Burial Ground is a testament to Grave's penchant for penning morbidly brutal tunes and their ability to utterly crush the listener with thick, down-tuned Swedish riff destruction.  If you enjoyed Grave's previous work, then this murderous affair will be sure to disembowel you.