UMUR
"Extremely Rotten Live" is a live album by Swedish death metal act Grave. The album was released through Century Media Records in April 1997. It features fifteen tracks recorded live on the 21st and the 22nd of September 1996 at the Showcase Theatre, Corona CA, USA. The band were apparently never satisfied with the album, because the recordings were culled from some of the earliests shows on their US tour and they felt that some of the later shows on the tour featured more tight performances.
The tracklist covers the band´s first four albums, one tracks from the 1993 "...And Here I Die...Satisfied" EP, and the "Reborn Miscarriage" track from the 1989 "Anatomia Corporis Humani" demo. As "Hating Life" (1996) was their latest album and they were supporting the release of that album on the US tour, "Extremely Rotten Live" features no less than five tracks from that album. So most of the material is old school Swedish death metal, but the material from "Hating Life" (and to a lesser extent the material from "Soulless" (1994)) is more groove oriented, so this is not the most representative live album in terms of what you normally hear at a Grave show. It was a short period of their career that they toyed with heavy grooves/riffs and throaty shouting vocals instead of brutal death metal growling, and they soon returned to a more old school death metal style, which they have stuck to ever since. That makes "Extremely Rotten Live" a historical document of what Grave sounded like in the mid-90s, but not a particularly good documentation of early- og latter day Grave.
"Extremely Rotten Live" features a sound quality which is decent and detailed enough considering that this was recorded live, but it´s not a particularly powerful or well sounding production. It doesn´t take more than a few tracks before my ears tire from the sound and when the material is of such differing quality too, it makes for a pretty uneven listen. So upon conclusion "Extremely Rotten Live" is unfortunately a missed opportunity and considering how seldom death metal bands are given the opportunity to record a live album, Grave´s frustrations with this release are understandable (I´m a little frustrated too...). A 2.5 - 3 star (55%) rating is warranted.