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Grave > Hating Life > Reviews
Grave - Hating Life

If Pantera was a metal band - 85%

AxlFuckingRose, April 22nd, 2023

One of death metal’s most consistent innovators, Grave, returned in 1996 to release yet another staple record in their storied discography. Shifting away slightly from the traditional death metal roots they presented on albums like “Into the Grave” and “Soulless,” the Swedish duo opts for a slightly more accessible sound, but manages not to sacrifice quality for the sake of doing so. This album is still punchy and powerful, with just a few more hints of groove added to their already-curvy sound.

“Restrained” and “Winternight” are perfect examples of the picture that Grave is trying to craft on this album. Groovy death metal riffs, hard-hitting vocals, and enough songwriting gimmicks to keep the three- to four-minute runtime from feeling vapid. Ola Lindgren, who handles the guitars, bass, and vocals on this record, has some highlights in the middle of the record, with chunky guitar riffs fitting nicely under his hoarse, pleading vocals. There are even some death-doom qualities to his lead guitar playing, like on “Beauty Within,” where the swaying groove of the riff is embedded squarely behind a slow and steady rhythm before the band breaks into a mid-tempo flurry. Grave’s ability to gather influences across multiple subgenres in death metal is on full display here.

If there are any drawbacks to this album, it would be that because they opted for a more commercial approach (although this is still firmly death metal), some of the songs are refined and simpler, but this hardly impacts the quality of the product. In many ways, this album feels like a macho version of whatever the hell Pantera was trying to do on Vulgar Display of Power, except the gruff vocals stick much better. The unorthodox intros and outros to many of the songs here is also a nice touch, like on “Two of Me.”

Later tracks like “Harvest Day” and “Redress” are again quality examples of Grave writing clean-cut, approachable death metal songs. The pinch harmonics are always welcome, and while Jensa Paulsson’s surround-sound drumming do lend an arena feel to some of the tracks on this album, the percussion is mostly over par. There aren’t many songs in particular that stick out on Hating Life, but as a thirty-two minute listening experience, it is about as good as you’re going to find for 1996. The outro to “Redress” and the final kiss goodbye on “Still Hating Life” feel like a good way to end the album as well, and the band deserves props for not trying to stuff too much into the record. Get in, get out, with thirty minutes of well-written, groovy death metal.

Stop That Damned Groove, Please! - 53%

CHRISTI_NS_ANITY8, March 28th, 2008

I was a bit doubtful respect this Grave album after having listened, and not enjoyed, the preceding “Soulless”: a concentrate of boredom and groove influences. Reading the reviews I was convinced I'd find a better full length and I must admit that is partially true…for sure is more compact. The groove influences, unfortunately, are yet stuck in the way of playing with lots of mid paced sections and so on… but, I don’t know, maybe the production exalts the most brutal group’s side and I’m thankful for this.

Actually, I believe the “Soulless” production was too weak for a death metal album, also compared to the blasting ones in their first two works. Here, instead, everything sounds far more primordial. The guitars sound is always arid and essential, along with a powerful drum sound and painful vocals on the borderline between screams (not shrieks) and growls. “Worth The Wait” features an up tempo part in the middle while the beginning to the heavy, slow “Restrained” smells of groove as never before.

Let’s take a song like “Winternight”: it would have been a boring crap in “Soulless”, with that production, but here it is a bit better without being exceptional at all, but the group is more incisive. If you can forget “Two Of Me” song or some hyper groove parts in “Beauty Within” is better to enjoy a bit the more classical death metal tracks like “Sorrowfilled Moon” or “Harvest Day”. Anyway, every track is full of those groove elements I hate so much in Grave albums after 1992 and this is an irritating thing to me.

The mid paced parts are far too long and annoying…fortunately the length is short but it’s like a semi-Odyssey to me (the real Odyssey was Soulless). Oh, come on…you cannot put out a song like “Redress”: it’s a total waste of time except for the second session of up tempo in this entire album. How can you put just TWO and I mean really TWO up tempos parts in a 32 minute Swedish death metal album? You are definitely history…there’s nothing worth hearing. The production is not enough to save this album.

Different from the rest, but not in a bad way. - 84%

Kyble, May 16th, 2007

Before I bought this album I was already a pretty big Grave fan, already owning "Soulless" and "You'll Never See", easily their 2 best albums in my opinion. Anyway, the first thing I noticed on this album is that the production quality was similar to their earlier albums (lower quality) rather than their last album "Soulless" which was very well produced. And also the vocals were . . . different.

The songs on this album are solid, probably some of the best Grave have written during their career, especially "Worth The Wait" being one of the best. There is nothing really different on this album that's different from typical Grave stuff, but the songs on here do the Sweedish Death Metal scene justice.

As for the instruments, everything is pretty much in order as it should be, the guitars are on top form along with the bass, churning out quality death metal riffs ranging from the thrash side of death to the groove side of it with nice leads over the top at some parts too. The drums don't particularly stand out but they get the job done well and good.
Now the vocals, well for this album, this is probably one of Grave lowest points, and also the only reason this album didn't get over 90. I knew Ola had to stand up to vocal duties now that Sandstrom left but I thought anyone could do a decent attempt at death metal vocals in the studio. One of my favorite aspects of Grave were the vocals, and this album does not live up to them. The vocals are not bad in any way but they're just not refined enough in my opinion. I'm glad that Ola realized that after this album and decided to change back to the style on "Soulless".

My overall opinion of this album: get "Soulless" and "You'll Never See" before this one as they are much better produced and show Grave in better form, this album is really only one for the fans.

Not Necessarily Hating this Album - 82%

PseudoGoatKill, March 14th, 2005

I purchased this album along with Soulless (both being on the same album). I had heard Grave on several of Century Media's VA compilations and decided to give this band a chance. I'm not too entirely disappointed, but Grave is not the pennacle of death metal. They're pretty good, but not the best.

For fans of Grave that devolt themselves to following the entire career of Grave one of the first things you'll notice is that Hating Life has seemingly worse production than "Soulless". The hugest factor for this could be that only two members recorded this album. Instead of getting a nice low end death metal production you get something that's more akin to blackmetal production.

Although the production is weaker, the song writing and music is much stronger than that of "Soulless". One of the quams I had with "Soulless" is that the album was getting more and more repetitive. Although "Hating Life" isn't a true masterpiece the band actually manages to write differant music for all of the songs. The guitars on this album are decent, there are plenty of sliding scale solos played, and other interesting guitar riffs thrown all around the album, but after awhile it does get a bit stale.

Sadly though the drums, vocals, and bass take a backseat to the guitars due to the production. The vocals are not as low and evil sounding as they were on "Soulless" and almost began to sound Melo-deathish. The bass provides the lowend, but without better production it just slips into the background partially unnoticed. The drumming on this album is haphazard, and sounds like your typical death metal drumming. There's alot of double bass drumming going on, but it's nothing spectacular.

The album is still enjoyable though, but you might want to see if you can find this for a cheap price.

Not quite Hating Life, just disliking it. - 56%

demonomania, November 18th, 2004

While I am a Grave fan, no make that a Grave fanatic, this is by far the least enjoyable album I have of theirs. No, make that Extremely Rotten Live. but still, this one is not so good.

The one aspect that really sinks this one for me is the vocals. In fact, this could sit right alongside "Back Into the Grave" if they had just gone with the more distorted, tinny, evil sounding vox. But instead you are tormented by more mid - range, raspy, shouted singing, which has always been a style that I disliked.

The songs themselves seem to lack a little bit of what makes Grave so great - the trademark midpaced death groove. While you hear it here and there (Sorrowfilled Moon being a fine example), the rest of the songs lack distinction and passion, and that headbangingly awesome Grave guitar work. The drums are also flat, passionless. "Two of Me" is a good one, but again, this album is about 7 tunes too long. The last little outtro is kinda fun to listen to as well, some acoustic guitar with someone saying something that sounds whimsical in Swedish. But overall, a lack of pure Graveness (and hey, what the hell is up with the lyrics, where did SATAN go?) makes this very forgettable.