Vehemency
Gravehill is another contender of uncompromising death / thrash / black metal, now releasing their second full-length When All Roads Lead to Hell via Dark Descent Records. No bullshit, this is a soundtrack to all that is solely evil - in good and in bad.
Indeed, the Satanic rampage seems incessant here. At first I’m not harassed by it at all, quite the opposite actually as the first four or five proper songs after the intro kick some serious ass, most notably the highlight ”Extinction” that has the album’s probably only proper lead melodies, a nice ominous sounding addition into the thrashing hell. Vibes of e.g. early Bathory and Venom records run through the album’s veins, and the way Gravehill fuses the three genres (or, in fact, how they play like in those times when the distinction between the three wasn’t yet so clear) is admirable. But after the title track ends, there’s clear stagnation, and there’s only the bookend ”Consvmed by Rats” and its brooding acoustic guitars that make amends.
One feature of When All Roads Lead to Hell is particularly behind the album’s lackluster songs, and it’s the production. While it sounds authentically old school, it’s also quite feeble: drums not having enough power amongst the guitars that also sound somewhat watered down. Overall tightness is lacking here, and a crispier sound could have made the album shine a lot brighter.
When All Roads Lead to Hell will appeal to many fans of the genres’ old school traditions, and in fact it has already garnered positive media attention quite successfully. I might not agree with all the positive comments, because all in all there’s a shitload of other similar albums released on an almost daily basis and this one doesn’t happen to belong to the very best of them. Among the masses of this kind of albums, there’s a lot to choose from and When All Roads Lead to Hell might not be my pick. If only the production was fixed and there were more prominent material on the latter half of the record, then we could consider it again.