Tales from a Thousand Graves

Gangrenator was a new name to me when this promo arrived, and I had only had a brief encounter with Apocalyptic Empire Records, the label behind it, so I didn’t really know much about anything relating to the release. But if I hadn’t read their bio before pressing play, I would never have guessed this to be a Norwegian band, and I would never have guessed this to be a Norwegian label. I can almost guarantee I would’ve thought it was Razorback Records’ latest signing of a American band…

The immensely dense production, still leaving the sound dirty and rough, sounds very true to the older days of death metal and grindcore. There’s no doubt in my mind these lads have drawn some inspiration both from the American old school death scene as well as the Scandinavian, and I’d be bloody surprised if Impetigo didn’t play a part in the creation of Gangrenator’s sound. As the brief 25 minutes of playtime goes by my head fills with thoughts of Splatterhouse, Blood Freak, Frightmare, Bone Gnawer… and of course Impetigo. The list of comparisons could go on for quite a while, but still I never find any copycat tendencies on Tales from a thousand graves; it’s more like an homage to the old school sound, and the bands that created it.

While the riffing lays a solid foundation of groove, I can’t say there are any riffs I’ll be humming in the future. Not to say they’re no good, freakin’ far from it, but I’m too occupied being bulldozered asunder by Gangrenator to have the time to pay the riffing that much attention. It’s just a wickedly energetic and captivating ride the lads take us on, and I dare the gore, horror, death and grind freaks out there not to mosh along; it’s damn near impossible. While the old school death, grind and gore sounds are delivered in an energetic manner, the catchiness is elevated to another level by the minorly thrashing tendencies (reminding me a whole lot of Birdflesh), as displayed in Planet of the graves. The instrumental handling is terrific, and the relatively high tempo, only to be abruptly interrupted by blasting, keeps the listener on the edge of his/her seat, as one’s never too sure what’ll happen next. So it’s safe to say the structural base of these thirteen short bits is solid as a rock.

The harsh-as-hell, but still extremely decipherable, vocals deliver the gory and horror inspired lyrics in a marvelous manner. And along with the samples rearing its ugly face every now and then you can’t ignore the horror flick atmosphere of the album. I’m absolutely blown away by Tales from a thousand graves, and it’s one of the strongest debuts of 2010.

Originally written for http://www.mylastchapter.net