GMN - Vol74 - Gravety, Spectral, Raventale, Tears Of Mankind, Storm Of Ashes

GRAVETY
'Into The Grave'
SOURCE OF DELUGE

Smackdown and let rip to the sounds of Heavy Thrash Metal, or one should say the debut album 'Into The Grave' released by Gravety. The German quintet lash together a unique sound that reflects the glorified Oktoberfest in its prime, sensational riffs and menacing drumming all adding flavour to the mind-blowing vocals that cascade and scale the volume levels like no tomorrow. 'Into The Grave' is a strong starting point and it is highly promising that this band are to get a name for themselves across Europe. Finally the missing component to the Heavy Thrash Metal vein has come, the anxiety can now dissipate.

[8] RHYS STEVENSON

SPECTRAL
'Gateway To Death'
CCP

You know, it seems to be that when German musicians adopt Viking Black Metal as their chosen music genre, they seem to nail it perfectly, however taking Spectral's fifth offering 'Gateway To Death' into account, they do more than just nail it, they obliterate it. Blasting out blastbeats like no tomorrow and utilising a chaotic vocal range, the quintet are in no doubt amateurs in producing quality music and as such are not even remotely reluctant to go the extra mile, not much could be said about the German cars, but that's Industrial Metal surely? Spectral are amongst the elite of Viking Black Metal bands who do more than shriek, they totally mean it.

[7] RHYS STEVENSON

RAVENTALE
'Bringer of Heartsore'
SOLITUDE

As if the Ukrainians were going to let Russia steal the spotlight with the factory of doom pumping out disturbing Metal music day-in, day-out. Fat chance, as Raventale's fifth album saw light in 2011 it brought a majestic sound to it, one of which is totally different to conventional Black / Doom Metal albums, that said the melancholy and misery still resides in the most darkened atmospheres one could muster in such a musical genre, but with 'Bringer of Heartsore' being perhaps the best release by the one-man project, nothing can deter anyone from not calling this a work of art. Blistering drums acting as a forerunner to the rawest guitars heard, even the distortion is enough to create a double atmosphere, but with that in mind 'Bringer of Heartsore' is definitely one to have in anyone's collection.

[9] RHYS STEVENSON

TEARS OF MANKIND
'Memoria'
SOLITUDE

Can't even begin to explain what this is about, it fails to even create anything but percussive noise, even if the rudimentary beginning of 'Memoria' is particularly unwelcoming, the album for which is number four for the Russian one-man project Tears Of Mankind is absolutely abysmal. The drums appear out of sync to the guitars and the vocals don't even resemble anything like Gothic Metal, given due that its meant to Melodic Gothic / Doom Metal, it more resembles a successful Metal version of Justin Bieber with accessorized corpse paint, sad to say this is perhaps the worst attempt to date.

[2] RHYS STEVENSON

STORM OF ASHES
'Trial By Fire'

Post-humourously, this is a good solid demo release, Storm of Ashes wield together the epic sounds of Thrash Metal with the ballsy