Last year Finnish death metal savages Gravetaker unleashed their debut demo. Seven years in the making, this is a truly wild recording that I had to retrospectively review as it has become a regular listening experience. Out on CD via Urealis-Tuotanto and LP via Iron Bonehead Productions.
Sometimes you find a cut of metal that is so off-the-rails and wild it just rips its way into your life and doesn’t leave. That’s how I feel about “Sheer Lunacy”, the first demo by this Finnish duo of maniacs. Having picked up the LP after not being able to shake this haunting experience of total destruction; I figured I simply had to talk about it. This is a raw effort with maniacally rumbling bass and rusted barbwire guitars atop mountains of crashing drum perversity while the possessed vocals rabidly invoke evil with full force. There is a looseness to this recording that gives it that authentic archaic feeling while the music is wholly original and could be compared to the likes of Katharsis, Voivod, Necrovore, Sadistic Intent, Darkthrone, Repugnant or even some newer bands like Obliteration or Reversed. But these comparisons only make a small piece of the puzzle, the bulldozing belligerence of these Finns is like little else I have ever heard and its chokehold is one that is not going to relent. The suffocating atmosphere of sepulchral fury is inescapable while the ravenous storms of aggression are balanced with these cemetery-lurking passages more akin to the likes of Mortuary Drape; especially in the bass department. For a first demo it baffles me how many of my favourite elements they have managed to harness in such a striking and refreshed manner.
There are moments of respite, where these tranquil passages give a breather to really allow tension to rebuild before the demented extremity continues. Right ’til the end this is a violating listen that hammer itself into your bones with no remorse. Managing to feel ancient and yet like nothing previously heard; the duo uphold the quality of their insanity for every second of the record which will ensure you keep playing it over and over until your ears bleed and bones dissolve. When a death, black or whatever other kind of extreme metal record remembers what came first (heavy, speed, thrash) it is always a far superior experience and that is never more true than with Gravetaker’s adrenaline-pumping outbreak of evil. Putting both the death and metal into death metal; this thing is lethal and hard to the bone. Such a punishingly intense listen that will not be shaken, “Sheer Lunacy” will possess you with its timeless savagery. Like being injected with molten rust; Gravetaker will leave you bleeding pure metal and show no mercy for the entire process.
I cannot recommend “Sheer Lunacy” enough if you are a total maniac who misses death / black metal feeling truly wild, unruly, violent and chaotic. Like being struck in the face with a fist of granite; Gravetaker waste no time causing mayhem and bloodshed and despite taking a full seven years to complete one cannot deny how killer this thing is. Death steps over your threshold, let it in or fall to it…
Rating: 9 out of 10.
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