Grave - Soulless (Century Media, 1994)

After hearing “…And Here I Die Satisfied” I was a little worried about Grave, but then again I told myself that that was just a Ep and not a full length. I’m pleased to say that Grave has come back with probably their most solid effort yet and I thought “You’ll Never See…” would be impossible to top. Well they managed to do just that using a similar format, but they’ve turned up the groove level on this one. Just listen to how goddamn catchy the title track is. If that doesn’t get your head moving then nothing will and you should just stop trying to listen to music right now. Grave maintains their traditional Gothenburg Death Metal sound with heavy crunching guitars and the fairly slow paced compositions. The one thing they tried out new was a distorted effect on Sandstrom’s voice on the song “Turning Black.” Personally I think Sandstrom’s voice is excellent the way it is and needs no help along the way. Luckily the rest of the album is just his raw vocal delivery and that just adds to the power of the song “Soulless” in my opinion. They also decided to re-record some material from the “…And Here I Die Satisfied” Ep. All I have to say is that this was definitely needed. The songs sound easily ten times better than on the actual Ep recording. Not to mention they’ve made some progress in the overall production department because this album sounds a lot clearer. Whereas “You’ll Never See…” had some muddier tones in the mix, this album is fairly crisp, but keeps that old bass induced guitar tone. Although, the drums have more of a punch to their sound, giving the bass drum a more pounding effect for the listener. So basically if you really like “You’ll Never See…”, chances are you’re really gonna fucking like this one!(Cleric Curst)

Overall Rating: 9

Line-Up
Ola Lindgren - Guitars
Jorgen Sandstrom - Vocals and Bass (see also: Entombed)
Jensa Paulsson - Drums