If, for some reason, you decided to dive back in time through some of my older reviews, and heaven knows why you would, you’d have seen me use phrases like “a new wave of retro rock” and variations on that theme well over a decade ago to describe bands such as Kadavar, Devil, Orchid and others. Whilst some of the bands I lauded are no longer extant, despite the hiatus of 2016, Graveyard are one of the acts that have gone from strength to strength, their albums appearing high in the charts of their Swedish homeland, a feat that the simply entitled ‘6’ is sure to repeat.
‘Godnatt’ opens the proceedings with a mournful refrain that harkens to the dark and stark emotions of Fleetwood Mac, and no, I do not mean the coke fuelled seventies AOR leviathan, I mean the early blues and proto-metal incarnation of Peter Green’s band. The sustained melancholic guitars and stripped back sound conveying more emotion than all the wailing of a thousand chart songs of supposedly authentic artists. However, ‘6’ is not an album of misery, ‘Twice’ following with a romping, stomping rocker to blast away the gloom. Heavy blues follow in the opening crawl of ‘I Follow You’, the track ebbing and flowing between the bombastic and the introverted in equal measure to ensure the song constantly grabs the listener’s attention.
Next up in this march of magnificence is ‘Breathe In, Breathe Out’, and if you haven’t yet seen the video, I highly recommend you do, especially if you are a fan of the aesthetics of the movie ‘The Lighthouse’. The normally stripped back presentation of the band is augmented by a Hammond organ weaving through the track, as well as vocal harmonies of such beauty they could happily grace any Motown number from back in the day. Throw in a guitar solo that could have been provided by Robby Krieger of The Doors, and in an album of excellence this becomes a highlight. The more than appropriately named ‘Sad Song’ follows, the sort of sorrowful blues number that the late, great Alexis Korner used to present on Radio 1 when it was a station that played rock, and if you remember neither the show nor that era, well, trust me, it did exist. Indeed, the influence of the aforementioned Mr Korner, a man who helped bring Blues from the American underground to Europe and into the world of rock can be felt throughout the album, be it the progressions of ‘Just A Drop’, the emotional introspection of ‘Bright Lights’, or the slow burn of ‘No Way Out’ that builds from the gentlest of openings with layer upon sonic layer of guitar, bass and drums into a slice of classic hard rock. ‘6’ is closed off by ‘Rampant Fields’, and on my first listen I though for a second that Graveyard were going to recreate ‘Albatross’, and I’m referring to the Fleetwood Mac instrumental, not the Corrosion of Conformity stoner cut. Instead the addition of vocals gives the track an almost hypnotically soothing quality, a quality at odds with the in your face title of the song.
I’ve been lucky enough to have seen Graveyard live a whole bunch of times, and on each occasion they have been excellent. This new album just gives the band an even greater choice of songs to pick from, and each one would fit in seamlessly into their set list. The editor of this site did make comment that recently there had been a run of high scores in the reviews; well, sorry sir, but by letting me have ‘6’ you’ve got another one as it is magnificent.
(9/10 Spenny)
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