Metal Underground.com

If you’ve been following death metal since the early 90’s, you probably own Grave’s debut album, “Into the Grave.” The Swedish band, lead by metal journeyman, Ola Lindgren, made what many insiders believe to be a seminal death metal album right out of the box. They quickly amassed a worldwide following and went on to release a slew of well-received, albeit, not entirely essential albums. Throughout this time, the band threw in other influences to varying degrees of success. The most effective was the hardcore styled riffing on their “Soulless” album. The band fully committed to their strengths and followed their straight-up, death metal instincts on more recent releases.

Lindgren and his cohorts are about to release “Dominion VIII” and the band hasn’t sounded this charged-up in years. Songs like “Sinners Lust” and “Dark Signs” ooze with the kind of riffs that made the genre so irresistible in the first place. This is no-nonsense death metal of the highest order. Through the years, Grave has largely been Lindgren’s show, but the other members make a strong case for themselves here. Ronnie Bergerståhl’s driving bass drum and ride cymbal hits rip and tear through the songs with unforgiving abandon. Bassist, Fredrik Isaksson might not drop ultra-technical lines like someone like Alex Webster would, but his runs fall into the arrangements perfectly.

With bands like Entombed evolving their sound throughout their career, it’s actually refreshing to find a band embrace their original style and sound. You could throw this disc on and play it for someone and say it is an unreleased album from 1990 and they would probably believe you. But sure, it might sound primitive, but we need bands like this doing it and doing it with such passion. Tracks like “Deathstorm” sound lethal no matter what year it is, I suppose. Hopefully younger groups take a cue from Grave and learn that sometimes stripping your material to its most basic and purest elements is the mark of a truly great band.