Founded by some of the members from Portal, Impetuous Ritual and Temple Nightshade, Grave Upheaval is a death metal band hailing from the depths of Queensland, Australia and have immersed themselves to create, if not the most heaviest death metal album I’ve heard in 2018. The atmosphere, craftsmanship, lyricism, production and musical structures is the feeling where the listener has something taken for a instant gratification and delivers your craving for a unknown and spiraling visions to make vile soundscapes featuring 57 minutes cartilage shattering bass, vocals and guitars, you will come to appreciate the effort that goes into crafting an earthquake of such magnitudes.
Untitled II, much like their debut full-length demonstrates every tunes to build into a landscape that almost manifests as being tangible, thus giving substance and adding immersion to the overall instrumentation. The death metal appears when necessary, (though some level of patience is required before getting to that point), whilst being layered by intense waves of grueling guitar vibrations. From the first stroke of the drum kit to the last ritualistic chant, the listener feels entombed and enshrouded by this detailed monolithic pieces of blistering death metal. Aforementioned upon hearing this album, if you’re familiar with Impetuous Ritual’s Unholy Congregation of Hypocritical Ambivalence, you’ll notice some towering positions being thrown into the mixtures while the atmosphere and songs are extremely volcanic with some black/death darkest depths into this huge mammoth wall of sounds.
There’s little variation between songs as they are all completely driven forward by the droning wail of the guitar which and bass which doesn’t really change throughout the album’s interpretation.
Untitled II is the most abyssal sounding death metal album of 2018 with it’s caustic and dense, placing the cavernous sound so firmly above all else in their music, through combining elements of black, doom and death metal with drone and noise into one giant pot of caustic monstrosity.
Overall Score: 8.5/10
Review by Jake Butler
