Band: Gravehill
Title: Rites Of The Pentagram/ Metal Of Death
Label: Ibex Moon Records
Distributor: /
Release date: 15/10/2010
Review: Compilation-CD (re-issue)

The sweet boys of California-based Gravehill do love us all, and that’s why they were pleased to entertain and satisfy us with their new Ibex Moon-release. Enough tenderness, now piss off!

Facts: formed in 2001, with current/ former/ guest/ session members of e.g. Exhumed and Morgion. Split-up shortly after the release of the debut-EP Practitioners Of Fell Sorcery (label: The Funeral Agency) and reformed in 2007. Enough facts, so now p… off again.

Rites Of The Pentagram was originally released in 2009 through a small label called Enucleation (which did also release the band’s demo and EP), and this re-issue includes the Metal Of Death EP - as a matter of fact, Metal Of Death was the band’s 2007-demo, re-released through Enucleation in 2008 on vinyl as Metal Of Death/ Advocation Of Murder And Suicide, including two extra tracks in addition to the demo – and it’s this EP that features on the compilation, not just the demo-tracks – so in fact this compilation must have been titled Rites Of The Pentagram/ Metal Of Death/ Advocation Of Murder And Suicide. And now seriously: take it or leave it and piss off! Being a decent person (no further comment), I usually don’t swear that much (I repeat: no further comment), yet these pisses off are a nice introduction to set tone for what you might expect on this release. Indeed, Gravehill have never been created to bring joy and peace. Their warlike hymns bring a no-nonsense and primitive form of ugly old school Death Metal with an eighties Black / Thrash mentality. With ‘primitive’ I mean that this material is straight-forward and nihilistic, yet not the monotonous or inspiration-lacking way. And of course it has a lot to do with the sound too: rough, unpolished, thorny, and therefore morbid and demonic at the same time.

Note: primitive does not equal narrow-mindedness!

Like many of their influences (see further), Gravehill differs a lot in tempo and melodic approach, between the tracks and within (most) tracks. That’s a surplus for this compilation clocking near an hour. Yet no matter if a song is fast or slow, all of them pay gloriously tribute to bands as Kreator, Bewitched, Massacre, Autopsy, Grave, Incantation, Necromantia, Hellhammer/ early Celtic Frost, Mantas/ Death, Goatlord (listen to Pissing On Your Grave), Necrophagia, Pestilence, Bathory or Venom.
Purity and quality, highly recommended to those who can appreciate raw, unclean Death / Black / Thrash Metal from the Old Skool. [there’s an edition which includes a bonus-DVD, for the interested ones]

92/100

Ivan Tibos.