UMUR
"Soulless" is the third full-length studio album by Swedish death metal act Grave. The album was released through Century Media Records in June 1994. It´s the successor to "You'll Never See..." from September 1992, although the two full-length studio albums are bridged by the February 1993 "...And Here I Die... Satisfied" EP. "Soulless" would be the last release to feature lead vocalist/bassist Jörgen Sandström. He would later join Entombed as their permanent bassist. A position he held for a number of years.
Grave took a slightly different direction on "Soulless" adding more groove to their original "straight" old school Swedish death metal sound. This is not groove metal by any means, but there are certainly riffs and sections on the album that lead my thoughts in that direction (I´ll stretch as far as to call it groove based death metal). Maybe best examplified on the opening track "Turning Black", where the band also experiment with some aggressive distorted vocals instead of their usual deep growling. In fact the growling vocals on the album have in general taken on a more aggressive tone, compared to the more monotone brutal growling on the early material by the band. The vocals are also more intelligible now. It wasn´t an unusual thing to bring more groove into death metal in those days. Acts like Entombed and Konkhra did this with success around the same time.
"Soulless" features a brutal, raw, and powerful sound production that suits the music well, and "Soulless" is a good quality release on most parameters. While old school death metal purists may wrinkle their nose at the more groove oriented sound on "Soulless", I actually think it suits Grave well. The tracks are easier to tell apart than the case were on earlier releases and there are quite a few kickass groovy riffs on the album too. Not everything is on the level of the best tracks on the album (there are in other words fillers on the album), but I think the quality of the tracks and the album in general are pretty high. I´d say a 3.5 star (70%) rating is deserved.