Sweden’s Bastard Grave know exactly how to cave your skull in, you’ve only to listen to the bands previous two full lengths to realise this as their third grotesque monstrosity continues that path with more unadulterated filth. Bands like this never rely on studio trickery to get your attention, never resort to embellishing their songs with extraneous unnecessariness, they deliver eight songs of rancid malignant sonic sewerage that begins with ‘Sunder The Earth’. There are few subtleties throughout this release as the band prefers to beat you to a pulp adding deluges of groove to craft that catchiness Scandinavian death metal has always had, and these Swedes do it with repulsive glistening slime.
There’s plenty of references to old school acts such as Dismember but these guys are their own, the riffs sawing into your head with guttural glee as ‘Icon Bearer’ shows where the density is asphyxiating and the vocals have that disembowelling tone fans of the genre love. ‘Necrotic Ecstasy’ has tenets of very early Carcass, and I really mean early, that sense of goregrind permeating the track through its riff style as the stench filled cavernous vocals add their own level of inhuman contempt. Contrasting slightly is ‘Consumer And Forgotten’ where an eerie opening of guitar blends with the bass and drums to produce a song of hideous menace as the crushing drum work adds colossal impact.
‘Nameless Horror’ also has an eerie start, its isolated guitar linking with the suffocating bass work but coupled to an atmospheric aura with an ethos of dread being added that fans of Autopsy will appreciate. Having no, or minuscule, gaps between songs ensures the momentum of the album is huge as the horror strewn ‘Hunger To Devour’ marries up with the groove laden ‘Eternal Decomposition’. As repulsive as it’s possibly to get the song has a fetid ferocity with the double kick work supplementing the already monstrously dense guitar and bass work.
Closing we get the title track, a song that is much longer in duration and, dare I say, a tad more experimental but drenched in the Bastard Grave putridity as sinister noises act as the intro before the song shifts to doom-death choking terror. I really enjoyed this song and despite it being slightly different to the rest of the album you absolutely know it is Bastard Grave, their sense of rotting riffing pervades the whole track as the riff break signals the change in velocity before it drops back to noises at its climax.
Utter putrefying death metal from Bastard Grave, an album soaked in polluted noxiousness that old school Scandinavian death metal fans will want to hear.
(8.5/10 Martin Harris)
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