Back to the Mausoleum

When it comes to bands bearing the Graveyard name, chances are that you’re mainly familiar with the Swedish hard rock group.  If you’re more in tune with underground death metal, then that name may bring the Spanish band to mind instead.  Last year the Spanish Graveyard celebrated their tenth anniversary, during which they’ve put out three full length albums and countless splits.  As part of their tenth anniversary the group recorded a new EP titled Back to the Mausoleum which offers five new songs.  It’s a short burst of bottom heavy riffing and haunting atmospherics, but the writing offers enough stand-out moments to appeal to fans of the genre.

A minute long intro sets the tone for the EP, letting an eerie guitar melody hang over the recording.  It’s an appropriate way to start off a release titled Back to the Mausoleum, and from there the instrumentals transition over to the familiar lumbering riffing and pounding drums that feel as though they’re heavy enough to bury your alive.  Graveyard strikes a fine balance between a rawer recording where the instrumentals bludgeon you into submission and a more polished one where the melodic elements can breathe.  While there are certainly plenty of overwhelmingly heavy sections where the tempo and tonality work in tandem to attack the listener, what makes this material stand out a bit more are the subtle nuances that the melodies and effects bring to the table.  Particularly on “And the Shadow Came” and “An Epiphany of Retribution” the melodies bring forth an eerie, unsettling atmosphere that stick with you even after the songs have ended.  Imagery from various horror movies is sure to come to mind as you listen, and that’s definitely a positive for an old-school oriented death metal release.

The vocals on Back to the Mausoleum are a mix of low growls and higher screams that have a tortured, ghoulish sound.  On both of the fast-paced tracks where the band goes on the attack the growls dominate and tower above the recording with an incredible amount of intensity.  But when the group slows things down a bit and lets the atmosphere creep in they utilize a higher scream alongside the lower ranges, giving a different feel to these particular songs.  The variation between the two pitches works to Graveyard’s advantage and is sure to catch listener’s attention with how it fits the creepier tonality.

Ten years in Graveyard is still writing killer death metal that balances fast paced onslaughts with slower melodies that feel like they’re going to drag you to the afterlife.  Like most bands of this type that have clear old-school influences these guys aren’t reinventing any of the traditional genre elements or pushing into truly different territory, but the writing remains strong enough to remind listeners of why they were drawn to death metal in the first place.  Back to the Mausoleum is available from War Anthem Records.

-Review by Chris Dahlberg

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