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GRISLY
The Spectral Wars

Xtreem Music (2018)
Rating: 8/10

With a name like Grisly I had hoped for a rather bludgeoning boulder of brutal, gnarly death metal… and I wasn’t disappointed.

This unruly Swedish bunch of gargoyles is another product of Rogga Johansson (Dead Sun, Down Among The Dead Men, Johansson & Speckmann, The Grotesquery et al), a chap I’ve mentioned in numerous reviews before.

No real surprise then that this ominous, churning, pus-infested slab is built upon a seething mass of maggot-ridden riffage, whether in the form of fast-paced bouts of phlegm-coated aggression or suspenseful grimaces of melancholy. Either way, everything on offer here is accessible and churns like a soup full of innards. Grisly also features bassist Dennis Blomberg (Down Among The Dead Men, ex-Paganizer), who has worked with Rogga before, while the skins are bashed in muscular fashion by Henke Lundgren.

Ten tracks are dished up, all of which mix that lumber art of catchiness with a murky speed. All of the tracks match up perfectly with the greenish hue of the war-torn cover art, which depicts a battered tank mounted on a heap of bodies while an oozing spectral form is issued forth from said mountain of remains.

Even with its faster segments of raging Swedish-styled death salivations, The Spectral Wars maintains an earthy, fusty feel, mainly due to those sombre solo strains. Vocally, meanwhile, we get the usual squelching gnashes straight from the Autopsy-cum-Entombed book of gore-soaked wretchedness. While there’s nothing vastly original about Grisly, Rogga Johansson has quite clearly, albeit while covered in smog, become the Tony Iommi (Black Sabbath) of the death metal world, conjuring and puking up an abundance of infectious grooves that straddle the line between sepulchral doominess and racing tides of gob-coated death thrash.

‘The Casket Eaters’ is a prime example of the band in fully bloodied flow with that snarling speed as the drums hammer like there’s no tomorrow, and then there’s the groove-laden chops of ‘Rot To The Living’ which quickens its pace to become a rasping, drooling fright fest of the grotesque. Snap up any of these ghoulish gems though, and you’ll stand agog at the riff-mastery produced by Rogga as his band of morbid souls trudge in vile fashion through the ominous, gluey trudge of ‘Bring Out The Horrors’ which then quickly resorts to putrid type. Meanwhile, the hideous gallop of ‘Supernatural Warfare’ offers further accessibility to this wasted domain of skulls and drudgery.

When the trio slows its pace though, one cannot but help trudge and wade with them through the quicksand of squalid human remains and muck. Opener ‘Consumed From Beneath’ is rather apt in its title with its dragging introduction of macabre chords before the brutal burst abounds. Right through to the closing morbidity of the title track, we’re swept up in a soupy, squelching soil that leaks from every orifice; a downright filthy liquid that coats every guitar chord, bass thud and percussive beat.

Grisly makes for a grisly experience. Point rammed home, then…

Neil Arnold

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