Battle Grave – Cavernous Depths

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Hailing from Melbourne Australia, BATTLE GRAVE describe themselves simply as two life long friends with a love of metal. Their sound can be described as heavy thrash metal with sprinklings of sludge and death metal. A modern extreme metal band not wishing to be confined to one genre! “Violent Conjurations” opens up the album, and I knew I was in for something non-conventional and genre splitting. A slow cinematic theme, progressing into a minor sludge fest before all hell breaks lose with a glorious thrash attack. All within 2 minutes!? I wasn’t expecting the vocals to make such a late and brief cameo, but that just shows the band aren’t here to play by the rules.

Infectious grooves, vocals spiced with primitive aggression, and all out thrash intensity is how I would describe the next few songs. “Relentless” showed tremolo picked dissonant guitar riffs, similar to what you’d hear in a black metal number. I’m loving some of the more progressive and experimental elements, especially during “Cavernous Depths”, when the pace screeches to a halt in the mid-point; the eye of the storm. If you’re after something a bit grindcore (read; relentlessly fast, no glitz or glamour, just balls to the wall intensity), I implore you to check out “White Death”. This juxtaposed with the slow, synth heavy instrumental “Undying”. To be fair, I’m glad. I needed a minute to rest my neck and catch my breath. The insanity returns with “The Black Vortex”, which intensity levels that probably measure on the Richter scale, whereas “Bleak Future” is slower but no less brutal.

I had to do some digging into the band’s back catalogue to satisfy my curiosity. But yes, “PT III Retribution of the Witch” is part of a trilogy of songs, two of which appearing on the previous album. Very clever I may add. Whilst it has been done before (just ask METALLICA), it’s forced me to go back into their back catalogue. Digital marketing hack for any of you aspiring musicians out there. Overall, this is a solid album. I do wonder what it would be like if it was a full band and was a live project.

Songwriting: 8
Musicianship:8
Memorability: 8
Production: 8