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GRAVEHILL
Death Curse

Dark Descent (2014)
Rating: 7/10

California’s Gravehill may have released three studio albums since reforming in 2007, but it’s been an unsteady ride for this quintet who originally formed back in 2001.

Drummer Rhett “Thorgrimm” Davis has been carrying the torch since the band’s inception, but remains the only original member. Since 2007, Thorgrimm has been accompanied by bassist J.T. Corpse, vocalist Mike Abominator (who originally started out in 2007 as bassist), and the guitar duo CC DeKill (a hilarious take on Poison’s CC Deville, no doubt) and Hell Messiah.

Death Curse is a welcome return for the band. Their second effort, 2011’s When All Roads Lead To Hell, was a tad tepid in my opinion, but this time round the combo have upped the ante and provided us with earthier dynamics. There is also the added bonus of guest appearances from Chris Reifert and Eric Cutler of Autopsy, and death metal vocal legend Kam Lee (Massacre, Death, Bone Gnawer). While lacking in originality, Gravehill have mastered the art of combining filthy blackened thrash with punkier elements as well as injecting a dose of old school grotty death metal that hints at Autopsy.

After the customary introduction (‘Gates Of Hell’) – which opts for the usual eerie atmospherics – we’re plunged into the black ’n’ roll sorry mess that is the title track, which comes fast, thick and furious like a suffocating black fog. It’s the sort of dirty metal that’s all the rage at the moment; pretty much no frills from start to finish with rasping, squawking vocals, which give the sound a decadent feel and yet which quite happily drift into deathlier gargles. The riffs aren’t overly memorable, but that could be down to the fact that so many bands are choosing this weapon nowadays to make a living – so one can expect a squalid guitar sound, foetid, trashy drums and rusty solos which marry the whole infected grotto of grot together. ‘At Hell’s Command’ sees the band at their most effective – well, initially anyway, because the track begins with a brooding intensity, before once again becoming a nonsensical noise-fest of unclean pace.

Before you start thinking that this is probably how the album is throughout, though, take a moment to listen to the sinister strains of ‘Open Their Throats’ which, before it throws itself into suicidal anarchy, is in fact a really harrowing and doom-laden chunk of extreme metal. Easily one of the band’s finest moments, it still manages to coagulate traditional metal with creaky death metal. It’s just a shame the band don’t do this more often on this nine-track affair. The guitars reek of menace, the vocals shape-shift but always remain gore-soaked, and the bass bubbles just under the surface as if a serpent of sores is about to rise from the clotted depths.

The drum-led ‘Fear The Reaper’ features a fuzz-punk guitar and upbeat type of attitude you’d expect from an old sweaty punk gig were it not for the vicious, rasping vocals and the traditional metal guitar which drives hard along the trash-strewn freeway. It’s a catchy number that gives way to the blackened blaze of ‘Unending Lust For Evil’, which is a blistering attack on the senses.

When the band remember how gloomy they can be, however, they vomit out another minor classic in the form of the festering wound that is ‘Black Blood Rising’, which again offers doomier shards to embed the thrashier elements. ‘Crucified’ does the same thing but becomes a real punk threat, and the closer ‘The Ascending Fire’ begins like some icy black metal fire and takes us down into the barbed wire mire with flailing solos and ever-changing vocals of death, destruction and dirt-choked deviancy.

Of their three albums, Death Curse is undoubtedly the best that Gravehill have presented. While it may not linger long in the memory, it still packs a rusty wallop.

Neil Arnold

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