Eternal Redemption

This release reminds me of your average Dark Funeral sound, but playing in a romantic BM style very similar to Dimmu Borgir's Stormblast or For All Tid, without synth/keyboard layering. Good studio production. This band gets away with the atmospheric style because of the classical guitar riffs that take care of the fact that there are no keyboards to conquer this flow, the classical guitar conquers the atmosphere instead. 3 tracks, excellent demo!

Gravestorm is one of those bands that worship old Dimmu Borgir and combine it with the sound of Borknagar to make something truly epic and evil at the same time. That's really all I can say about this that hasn't already been said about those bands. I was actually surprised about how well these guys pull this off. I was expecting something like a twelfth-rate Mayhem ripoff, but I was pleasently surprised when I actually heard it.

The sound quality on this demo is fantastic...for a demo, and a black metal demo at that, this sounds like it was produced at Morrisound or an equally popular studio. Everything is clearly audible and there is almost none of that "vacuum cleaner" effect that seems so common on other black metal demos!

The music. Gravestorm sound a LOT like Dimmu, only without keyboards (which is a good thing). The vocals are very well done - they remind me heavily of Nocturno Culto in places. They guitars also have a heavy yet full sound. Another plus is that I can actually hear the bass, and it provides such a nice touch over all the poorly-produced black metal demos I've heard where the bass seemingly does not appear. And the drums are standard and unnoticeable.

The best song is without a doubt Eternal Redemption. It's totally epic and evil, with some good soloing and riffage and a fantastic vocal performance. I detect some Burzum worship here, too. That kind of riffing where it repeats the same four chords for several minutes without any change. In a good way, though. The other song, Rise of Belial, is kind of...not that great. It doesn't suck, but it probably won't see too many runs through my CD player. That being said, Gravestorm shows promise, particularly if they can overcome that Dimmu Borgir worship. And not bastardize Cradle of Ass.