As sure as the population of a cemetery grows but never shrinks, Ola Lindgren continues to fly the tattered, rotting flag of old-school Swedish death metal. Beginning (after)life as Corpse back in 1986, Visby's own Grave took flight under the name in 1988, releasing four classic death metal albums before disbanding for two years back in 1997. After Lindgren reanimated the cadaver, he would go on to produce another album every two years, excreting his fetid slabs of death metal upon the world with unflinching regularity. Enduring the departure of many a band member, including long-time bassist Jorgen Sandstrom, Lindgren stands as Grave's sole founding member. Album number eleven, entitled Out Of Respect For The Dead, comes three years on from its predecessor, released this autumn on its stalwart label Century Media Records (since bought out).
Along with Dismember, Unleashed, and Entombed, Grave stands for a sound that was birthed and perfected in Sweden. Unfailingly loyal to the genre, Lindgren seems to have gotten whatever experimental urges he may have felt out of his system back in the middle of the 1990's, as did so many extreme musicians. Since those days, each Grave album has sounded quite similar to the one before it. For those to whom this type of consistency is key, this is a big plus. Out Of Respect For The Dead, as the album title hints, pays respect to the Swedish death metal blueprint. Lindgren's career has largely been a giant middle-finger to trends, and the new album in no way upends that particular hearse.
A swift, ominous intro gives way to "Mass Grave Mass," a speedy storm with a nice drawn out mid-section to give it some dynamics. For groove and a sinister snarl, "Plain Pine Box" with its pit-inducing riffs and morbid structure, one will find enough death metal purism to satisfy old-school fans. The title track comes on like something God Dethroned would do, all thrash and frenetic riffing. A driving beat like a hammer to the temple, the song finally lets up around the chorus section about 1:30 in; the transition is pretty bad-ass, and that is exactly what Lindgren is doing with Grave. It is what he has always done, and anyone looking for a pummeling will be happy with the results. The title track sets the bar and is one of the strongest songs on the album. Ronnie Bergerstahl gives an impressive performance on the drums, which brings to mind the production. Full, rich, and quite well done, the sound has a bit more clarity than on some prior releases, without sacrificing brutality.
[youtube]https://youtu.be/RbAyWFbFmW0[/youtube]
On album closer "Grotesque Glory," Grave tackles a song knocking on ten minutes in length. A doomy, slow beginning resolves itself into a mid-paced number with some ferocious vocal lines and riffs that could slice through a boulder. The mid-section increase in tempo is pure death metal, standard in approach but impeccably played by these Swedish veterans. "The Ominous 'They'" provides a swifter kick to the jaw, with a speed-metal framework and some prototypical old school riff-work thrown in for good measure.
Taken as a Grave album, Out Of Respect For The Dead does its job in reinforcing, not reinventing, and anyone expecting a shift in output from the Swedes will surely be disappointed. That being said, its 2015 and the internet age has ushered in a new era in the minds of fans, who are now armed with the capability of hunting down so much new music so quickly, discovering whole new genres at the touch of a button. In this complex landscape, it is up to the individual fan to decide whether a band making album after album so similar in execution is a good thing or a bad thing.
For pure death metal, there are bands out there writing more intense, more challenging material, but for fans of this particular strain of morbid metal, Out Of Respect For The Dead scratches that itch. A few of the songs don't really distinguish themselves from one another, but overall, if you dig extreme metal, and you walked into a club or a friend's house and this album was blasting, chances are you would not complain. Grave harks back to a time when tapes were traded, the message was simple, and the gimmickry was nil. Out Of Respect For The Dead pulls no punches, and what it might lack in variation it more than makes up for in solid production, authenticity, and balls.
