Dutch decimators Sammath have been around since the mid 90’s and have to date released seven studio albums. So why have I never sat down and listened to them before? Good question but some bands simply escape your attention. Grebbeberg is named after a particularly brutal WWII battle and is particularly significant to founding Sammath member Jan Kruitwagen as his Great Uncle perished in this furious campaign. This is the story of it put into musical form and I have to admit nothing quite prepared me for it. To say this album is extreme and intense is an understatement. It’s a true personification to the horrors of war and is delivered without a shred of mercy. Perhaps the fact that it was “recorded organically and mostly without dub overs” is what particularly makes this such a harrowing declaration and if you are looking for something likely to leave you absolutely shell-shocked you are in the right place. This actually leaves our favourite Swedes (not those happy clappy goons) with their panzers stuck in the mud and yes that is a bold statement indeed.
The title track is a furious welter with no need of introduction. Rhythms are skewed and duck and dive all over the place in a withering contusion of all out disorientating force. It’s aptly close to war metal and the hideous vocals are another rough edge gibbering with lunacy as everything else cleaves away over the top. The General here is unhinged, you can’t make out what he is scornfully ranting about but it’s a case of madness and complete lunacy. After this assault the swaggering and more formulaic sounding black metal of ‘Reichswald’ hones in with a blizzard of fiery tremolo picking, battering drums and vile screeches. There’s some lower blood-curdling vocal parts in the mix and nothing stands still for a second until the as expected ‘Murderous Artillery’ of the next track lands with deadly precision flattening earth and mangling flesh all around. Drums patter around like exploding mortar shells and as explosives land amidst the full weight of the thick production it’s enough to leave you ducking for cover.
A sharp, mournful doomy sound is a brief respite before ‘Last Gasp of the Dying’ is observed. There’s little time to bury the dead or enough left of them to fill a grave as we tear back into the maelstrom although this time there is a sombre feeling about it, there’s nothing victorious about it at all. This battle lasted 3 days and saw the Dutch forces outnumbered by German infantry and SS forces 15,000 to 23,000. It’s amazing really that there were less than 1,000 casualties but the utter annihilation of those lost is narrated in grizzly fashion by tracks like ‘Crushed, Shattered and Destroyed’ and ‘Decimated.’ No doubt this is why that although Sammath have ultimately delivered an album that extreme metal fans will like, it’s still one that you will probably want to observe a respectful silence to once this 39-minute exercise in turmoil ends. War is hell, there’s plenty of guts here but absolutely no glory.
(8/10 Pete Woods)
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