ALBUM REVIEW: Bastard Grave – Vortex of Disgust

Swedish Death Metal butchers BASTARD GRAVE are back with their 3rd album. Out via Pulverised Records on March 10th.

Gurgling ambience starts the record off, briefly, before bellowing riffs and drums blunder into existence. The immediately Autopsy influence that has been present on all the bands material is still there though with less of a Swedish influence (I.E: the buzzsaw tone). Still utilising feisty d-beats and fetid guitar grooves with monstrously gruesome vocals, Bastard Grave keep the rancidity of old school Death Metal as their primary focus. The slower sections have this odiously molten quality, especially when lead guitars spew atop them while the primitive hooks keep hammering out a simplistically enjoyable backbone. Convulsing with blast-beats and tremolo picked ferocity, there is plenty of dynamic value that always remains in the realm of decaying fury, consistently abhorrent and gnarly.

Sinking deeper into “Necrotic Ecstasy”, probably the most apt description of their sound you will find in this review, we hear a very consistent and refined (if utterly barbaric) band. Across three strong records, their sound has developed yet stayed true to itself. Some tasty Bolt Thrower style mid-tempo crawls come into the mix quite often and suit the grisly tone of the album gloriously. The ebbing and flowing between a lot of slower and mid tempos keeps a chunky pacing that is easy to get caught up in (like a “Vortex of Disgust” you might say), while changing enough to not simply rely on tonality alone. There is riffs aplenty on this monster of an album. Aside from the riff-fest at hand, the drummer makes plenty of great use of his entire kit and the vocalist does not let the team down either. This is a band whose entirety can deliver true putrescence and does so flawlessly.

Production-wise, this record is meaty. Those slower stomping sections pull right on the strings of your guts while the faster sections splinter bones with ease. Combined with the ghastly yet brilliant cover art and you know going to be a magnificently disgusting experience. Sometimes cool art can overshadow or distract from a mediocre record, but here that is not the case at all. The fact this album was produced by a bass player (notably Greg Wilkinson of Earhammer Studios, as well as Autopsy, Static Abyss and more), the presence of the instrument is clunky and present to give a booming low end to the sound. With the ability to go from dragging their weight in doomy passages to those full-bore blasting assaults, there is plenty of variety while keeping it strictly old school, something the band do inarguably well. Technicality and progression is kept to a minimum with the focus being on a vile atmosphere, primal skull-beating grooves and reliably solid Death Metal delivered with the old school spirit.

Three for three, Bastard Grave continue to hold my highest regard with their newest offering of fetidly old school Death Metal. A little different from the first two, notably pushing further into that Autopsy / Cianide style and maybe reducing some of the Entombed / Dismember in their sound. I personally love both directions and admire that they do not want to simply keep releasing the same record, each has had something unique to offer. “Vortex of Disgust” is exactly what it says on the tin, so if you want some top-shelf rotten Death Metal, look no further…