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GRAVE GHOUL
The House Of Dead Flesh EP

Dismal Fate (2024)
Rating: 7/10

Ryan Wills (Blood Rage / Seven Doors / Bludgeoned Beyond Reason) is turning into a one man death metal machine. His creative juices continue to flow with this, the second EP from his gore-crusted Grave Ghoul project. After last year’s Living Burial Ground, Wills concocts more Mortician-inspired splatter as another selection of meaty riffs traipse by like an overweight, sweaty psychopath marching his latest victim into his basement.

From the crude cover art to the predictable yet goofy track titles, this EP demands that you retrieve the dusty VHS player from the attic and sit through hours of crust-ridden 70s and 80s horror movies. Wills chomps his way through each track as if he were literally forcing you to gorge on each scuzzy riff, each one groovily grinding its gears to the rhythm of ritual stabbing.

‘Make Them Die Slowly’, ‘A Puzzle Of Body Parts’ and ‘Shambling Eyeless Corpses’ are sandwiched nicely between juicy opener ‘Limitless Methods Of Mutilation’ and foul closing title track ‘The House Of Dead Flesh’. Flashes of Necrophagia are introduced with every passing heap of drudgery, and I’ve no doubt that Grave Ghoul would make an ideal companion to Scottish one man band Putrid Fate.

Throughout this EP the listener is devoured by a cerebral catchiness while being coated by dollops of fun as Grave Ghoul injects itself into an already burgeoning UK death metal scene. Sick, twisted and terrific, Grave Ghoul plays out like one of those repulsive video nasties which, upon further reflection, is nothing more than tomato sauce and rubber, but still wonderfully schlock.

Neil Arnold

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