Grave
Into The Grave

THE REVIEW

While in the United States and especially in Florida, the so-called "Old School" Death Metal was already established for a couple of years, in 1990 the Swedes Grave released their seminal debut album "Into The Grave", a gem that is unfortunately too often forgotten (also because of subsequent performances not quite up to the debut) but that would fully deserve and be worthy of being reevaluated and respected for what it is and for what it’s worth.

Taking inspiration from what was heard from American Old School, Grave fused it with elements such as super-heavy and downtuned guitars and essential rhythms, often simplistic and never too elaborate, kept in check by a simple and perhaps for this reason pleasing rhythm section, composed of a sufficiently incapable bassist, Jonas, and a shaggy drummer, Jensa (the undoubtedly natural adjective refers to the excessive amount of cranial hair that makes him absolutely ridiculous).

The innovation of Grave, driven by anger, a desire to emerge in the now varied Death landscape, and particularly inspired in songwriting, lay in alternating, a thing that had never happened until then, parts of pure and absurd speed with decidedly more epic segments and almost martial tempo, overturning the idea of Death Metal seen as a “speeded up form of Thrash,” meanwhile collecting the slowdown of the track to insert easy, slow and not very technical solos, but not trivial (except for some exceptions that really smack of deja-vu) with some truly interesting insights, hiding the technical deficiency of the guitarists, who certainly would not have been able to do faster or more elaborate solos.

The combo, formed by Ola on guitar, the respectively bassist and drummer Jonas and Jensa, and the singer/guitarist Jorgen Sandstrom (later in Entombed and nowadays also engaged with Krux) truly offers us a deadly, powerful album, with downtuned guitars, simply terrifying growl (it’s the most evil I’ve ever heard), sustained drums and bass, but you see, imperceptible (luckily, I almost dare say).The songs that compose the album are still complete in almost every detail, never repetitive except for the reproposition of some riffs in some songs in a slightly modified/accelerated form.
Nothing to do with the genre defined as Heavy Classic Death Metal by Entombed, which in the latest “Inferno” strangely mix Black Sabbath with Morbid Angel with a result, in my opinion, very bewildering, but compositional inspiration, creativity, and originality, that overshadowed certain blatantly obvious borrowings.

As Jorgen Sandstrom now says, evidently feeling nostalgia and the call of the past, "looking at the album now, I really notice how the opener “Deformed” is one of the most wicked and brutal openings I’ve ever heard along with “Infernal Death” by Death and “Into The Crypts Of Rays” by Celtic Frost.” How can you disagree, “Deformed” is probably the most beautiful track of the album, but still historic pieces like “For Your God,” inspired by ritual sacrifice, "Oscure Infinity," the magnificent title-track, and the simply stunning “Haunted,” where some melodic hints can be noticed that would be picked up by Jorgen in the subsequent Entombed, go to accompany “Deformed” and look it straight in the eyes.

Also to be appreciated is the idea of Century Media that magnanimously decided to include in the Remastered version of the album some unreleased tracks like “Tremendous Pain” and songs of the album recorded, however, in demo sessions.

I point out the useless lyrics, which in some ways refer to Behemoth, in others to Decapitated and still others to Cannibal Corpse, still keeping active the torch of satanist Death Metal (Oooh, wow, they are Satanists, how cool, they are really transgressive...But spare me! Learn from Chuck!).

A work maybe not very original, but still enjoyable and long-lasting: trust me, once digested it will be very difficult to remove it from the player, and you’ll only take it out to put on some other masterpiece!
("Human" by Death ring a bell?)
Until next time!