Graveyard don’t care if you like them or not. Seriously. I get the impression that the release of this neat little E.P. has been coincidental to a band so underground that you should need an Oyster card just to listen to them. Other bands may be getting into the oldschool vibe of death metal, aping Entombed, Dismember or Grave – but this dirty, some might even say “nasty” release would even consider those bands to be relatively new school.
Graveyard, you see, play extreme metal the way it was played before the phrase “death metal” was widely spoken about. I mean “the metal of death”, in the vein of Scream Bloody Gore era Death, the Nihilist demos or the sickening sludge-doom hell that is old Autopsy. This is a leaden, crawling vision of lo-fi hell dredged up from the very pits of metal excess. Zombie like slow-shuffling drums, barely produced guitars and twangy elastic-band bass fights for space alongside the crudely barked vomit-vocals. Novelty act “Goat The Head” may describe themselves as caveman-metal, but their material, knuckle headed though it is, comes across as literally space aged next to the stubborn one-tracked nihilism apparent on “Into The Mausoleum”.
So you aren’t going to get any hyper technical super-whizzy displays of dizzying guitar skills, supra-rhythmic drumming or jazz-supremo inspired bass work. So what? The axe work on “One of Them” might be easily replicated by anyone using a “play for a day” TAB book and a second hand distortion pedal, but that’s really the point. Most metal musician would feel the need to resist such primitive playing, such wilful regression and such outmoded atmospheres. Luckily for us, Graveyard have forged ahead doing what they want. Personally, I love the raw sound, the undeveloped themes and the wreckless abandonment of playing just what the fuck they want. Simple things, done well; if it’s good enough for Gordon Ramsay, it’s good enough for me. Oh, and they do a fucking fantastic cover of the godly “Zombie Ritual” as a great bonus at the end too. What’s not to like?
http://www.myspace.com/graveyardofdoom
