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GRAVE VIOLATOR
Reet

Metal Throne Productions (2022)
Rating: 7.5/10

Like a lot of bands, the pandemic affected careers and seemed to put a stop to everything in 2020, but it’s no surprise that so many acts are returning this year with belligerent releases.

Helsinki, Finland-based black thrashers Grave Violator has come armed with Reet, their sophomore full-length outing that quite simply scalps the listener from start to finish with harsh, slurping vocals, nasty thrash with a melodious core, and percussion that flays skin like meat carved from a kebab machine.

Some may find a handful of tracks repetitive, more so in the hammering percussion, but one cannot argue with the infectious melody bestowed upon us from the likes of ‘Time Prisoner’, which initially runs so effectively as a killer trad’ metal groove before succumbing to the more archetypal black thrash haste.

One gets a sense there could be more to this band that meets the eye, but rather than branch out they seem happy in that raw, primitive striking whereby tracks such as ‘The Entity’ and ‘Exhumation’ blaze by like harsh blizzards. It’s actually a shame that these tirades seem all too quick in occurring because when you hear the opening strains of a track such as ‘Eternal Tower’ you can feel the organic originality hiding.

‘Eternal Tower’ begins in a doomy fashion, as does ‘Stone Anchor’ with its almost Isengard commandments married to traditional doom plundering, and I welcome this sort of variety. However, for those seeking the rapid fire of blackened thrash then look no further than the toxic speed of ‘Antimatter Annihilation’, a blitzkrieg of Teutonic thrash from the most charred remains of the early-to-mid 80s. Grave Violator sort of bridge the gap between the leather-clad depths of old Sodom, Destruction and Bathory to the likes of Nattefrost – that sickening, nasty black metal fiend who’d shit in your bathtub when you wasn’t looking.

Grave Violator is a simple yet effective beast that on snarls alone will send you shivering back to your parents’ house with a bad case of the flu. It’s rancid black thrash… nothing more, nothing less.

Neil Arnold

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