For death metal fans, this band needs no introduction, but for the laymen I’ll summarize. Grave from Sweden is a band that is in the long running, for 20 years they have terrorized the earthly soil with their uber true-ish Swedish styled Death Metal. It would be suffice to say, that Grave has influenced a lot of bands nowadays. To quote the biography that was included with this record: “Grave stands for the philosophy of Death Metal like Satan for the abyss of hell”. Their new record called Dominion VIII is their (as the name of the album reveals) 8^th studio album. They also have one ‘greatest hits or whacchamecallit’, a live album and an EP. With this impressive history, it is almost impossible to find a Grave album that actually sucks. I did not find one, and I’m pretty sure I’ve heard them all by now.

 

The record kicks in with ‘A World In Darkness’, which is a mid-tempo opening song, nice guitar work, old school riffs and quite predictable. The second song 'Fallen (Angel Son)' is a ultra slow grooving song, with riffs that suck you in, it does hit some primal nerve or something. The next interesting song is the 5^th track called 'Bloodpath', which is faster with a small screeching solo in the middle, so typical for this style of death metal. I like that guitar wankery! The vocals by Ole Lindgren are old school as well, somewhat like Peter Tägtren used to do with Hypocrisy in 1992. The album really does sound as a whole, and again I did not feel a sign of boredom when I listened to this album thrice.
 
Excellent guitar work, a roaring bass and thrashy drumming. That is how I would summarize this very decent new album of Grave. The vocals are the figural icing on the cake, that complete this record. I'll certainly be looking for a copy on Graspop Metal Meeting this year, to replace my promotional copy. Cheers!