UMUR
"Grinning Like an Undertaker" is the 4th full-length studio album by US crossover/thrash metal act The Accüsed. The album was released through Nastymix in 1990. The band are quite legendary for being one of the first crossover acts to embrace the splatter/horror movie lyrical style and imagery. They have been cited for dubbing their style of music "Splatter Rock".
...that´s quite obvious when you see songtitles like "Pounding Nails (Into the Lid of Your Coffin)", "Bullet-Ridden Bodies", "The Corpse Walks" and "Boris the Spider" on the back of the album. "Grinning Like an Undertaker" is a bit different from the albums that came before it though and that unfortunately results in a quite inconsistent album. While the music on the album can still overall be called crossover thrash, The Accüsed now embrace alternative rock and metal too. "Down & Out (feat. the Mad Poet)" is the best (read: worst) example of this new direction. It´s a pretty bland alternative metal track featuring rap style vocals. On the other hand a track like "Pounding Nails (Into the Lid of Your Coffin)", which opens the albums, is quite a solid crossover thrash metal track. Blaine Cook´s caustic sneer really suits the most aggressive and raw tracks well, but when he tries to put some melody into his delivery on the more alternative tracks, it sure doesn´t sound pretty.
The album is packed in a sound production that´s decent, but not really powerful or well sounding. "Grinning Like an Undertaker" is one of those albums that can´t make up it´s mind on what musical direction it should pursue and therefore it´s caught between two chairs. The album simply sounds uninspired, confused and quite frankly full of half-baked ideas. There are a few decent tracks on the album, but even those can´t quite live up to past glories and the new alternative direction falls flat on it´s face if you ask me. A 2 star (40%) rating is warranted.