Grave Digger
The Reaper

The Grave Digger have proven that the strength of willpower and ideologies in the music realm are stronger than any petty market logic, and the compositional efforts invested in the present platter are an obvious precise underline of this. To make you understand what I'm asserting, I must necessarily take a leap back in time. It's 1986, and the release of "War Games," a controversial work by the Teutonic combo, did not have much traction with critics and the public, leading to an equally miserable promotional tour and prompting their producers to quickly churn out something to right the fortunes. Too bad the operation was named "Stronger Than Ever,” a hard-rock flop released under the moniker of Digger, a blatantly commercial experiment created to ride the trendy wave of that period. In short, the Grave Digger disbanded and remained inactive until 1993, the year of the release of this literal punch in the stomach. Bolthendahl's lethal and energetic voice, a never more fitting backdrop to the rhythmic and solo work done on the occasion by Uwe Lulis on guitar, Jorg Michael on drums, and Thomas Göttlich on bass, probably churned out the darkest, most devastating, and most relentless chapter in their production. An incredible and frantic raw and adrenaline-pumping speed metal storm, a dizzying spiral of tight and badass riffs that paints in bold and clear strokes the theme that inspires it, already clearly revealed by the cover artwork.

After a disturbing spoken intro that immediately paints the protagonist of this sort of concept album, after a sinister unnatural neigh, we start with the first speed metal hailstorm. "The Reaper," with a splendid melodic texture in the refrain and reinforced by impressive rhythmic work, sounds anthemic and captivating on first impact and shatters inexorably as it passes, just like the subsequent whirl, "Ride On," epic in the bridge before the chorus which is like thunder in a clear sky, with Michael still prominently pounding behind the skins. And the adrenaline flows copiously again with "Shadows of a Moonless Night," granitic in its initial square riff, breath-taking and almost unsettling in the proceeding, with a beautiful and very expressive solo by Lulis, always fluid and convincing almost knowing no barriers, until it becomes almost throbbing in the subsequent malicious "Play Your Game (And Kill)." And again, one continues to dance nervously with death and its thousand images with the paced and sick " Wedding Day," an authentic invocation to death ("I want to kiss her, but she only wanna dance / I've waited all the time for you / You've broken promises, I'm just a fool for you") and the catchy and rocky " Under The Flag," healthy metal swerves, in which the solo work of the axeman Lulis reaches its compositional peak, embellished by the impressive amalgamation of the three instrumentalists.

And again breathlessly, one plunges into the notes of the obsessive, almost epileptic "Spy of Mas'On," the very tight but of little pathos "Fight The Fight," the only less successful moment of the platter, and down, fast to the devastating final lot introduced by the epic semi-ballad speedmetal "Legion Of The Lost (part II)," dreamy and atmospheric, almost as much as the suffocating and gloomy telluric "The Devil Plays The Piano," supported by an inspired text against war ("Marching armies, machine killers / Lying prayers, hell is waiting / Holy terror, deadly masters / Bring us pain, anger, and destruction") and with an interesting solo resolution on Lulis's blues scales (the metal-blues connection in a solo key is brilliant).

The closure is entrusted to the thorny and sharp "Ruler Mr.H," on the theme of the atomic, juxtaposed anachronistically with the bleak atmospheres of the instrumental "The Madness Continues," inspired by the themes of the Templars and the crusades (which will be the theme of the very successful "Knights Of The Cross").

In conclusion, "The Reaper" is a milestone of metal, a sort of nascent concept that tells of the skeletal and relentless reaper of souls and the forms it can take in the collective imagination and the reality of everyday life to the present day, an obligatory step for those who want to dive into epic atmospheres, among cobwebs, bloodshed, steeds and their sinister and dark whinnies.

See Ya!