Artist: Gravdal
Title: Torturmantra
Type: Album
Label: Unexploded Records

Prepare for a battering. Violence, penetrating screams of anguish, the sensation of depravity and slaughter, guitars simulating machine guns and alternative murder weapons, relentless drumming and the distinct absence of relief or harmony. It’s all here. This is the creation of disturbed minds. Gravdal play a modern but particularly malevolent form of Norwegian Black Metal. Phobos the guitarist plays in Malsain, Aeternus and Galar. I could detect on “Torturmantra” the evil of Malsain, and the darkness of Aeternus but the Viking element of Galar has been left behind.

The first two tracks “Hyrdestund I Helvete” and “Slave” and the untitled fifth track are examples of that black metal you might associate with Khold and Taake. The beat is insistent and there’s a suggestion of melody but that’s too strong a word. There’s always an air of uncertainty, the pace changes to maximise discomfort, and of course it’s always nasty and violent. “Eg E Ditt Helvete” marks a change of direction. After starting with the image of an iron foundry and its pollution-laden darkness, seemingly endless horrible screams turn to a mid-paced lecture of death. The skill here and elsewhere is the quality of the breaks, which mark the diversion into another dark direction. The following track “Mishandlet”, which means “Abused”, takes it further and almost slows to a stop. Croaked by Shining’s Niklas Kvarforth, it sounds like Louis Armstrong has decided to sing a Black Metal ballad. The strength again is the way that it powers up in mid-track before reverting to a cold and simple guitar line. Up and down it goes. It’s like having gangrene hanging in the air. A blanket of darkness, fronted by an ever-progressing guitar attack, is the dominant feature of the tracks “Torturmantra” and “Pulsen Vakler”. The latter culminates in the sound of mass carnage. “Kastrert På Ambolt” takes us sonically to an eerie house on a hill before setting off on another panic-stricken journey. The guitar cries plaintively in accompaniment to desperate screams. “Slutt”, which means “End”, is a statement of intent. Machine-gun guitars and screams precede sounds of tortuous agony. Once again the direction changes and we are not allowed to settle. It ends in no-man’s land.

As high up on the scale of unmitigated darkness and violence as it is, this album must not be underestimated for its musical quality. Control of pace and unremitting pain are in abundance. As an exercise in Black Metal nihilism, “Torurmantra” could serve as a model.

http://www.myspace.com/gravdal
http://www.unexplodedrecords.com