Gravewurm - Doomed To Eternity

Gravewurm

Doomed To Eternity

by Tony Player at 07 March 2016, 10:09 PM

GRAVEWURM’s 11^th album in their over 25 yearlong career represents a longevity most bands would dream of and many more decide to rest on the laurels of their first few albums instead of carrying on. However longevity isn’t necessarily a substitute for advancement and creativity, producing an album that feels like mostly filler with very little dynamic, not in the way of production as low-fi is the aim but in terms of variance within the album and the songs.

Opening quite strong with “Shining Night Gleam” with some good riffs and interlocking vocals to form a memorable punch. The number of different sections in such a short song give a real feel of movement to this battle field anthem. If the lyrics were sung high with some synth under it you’d have the worlds shortest Power Metal song. Leading into “Fangs Of The Serpent” is a minute of odd growls and generic riffs, taking a whole extra minute on top to generate any interest, mostly thanks to some solid drummer. “The Abyss Calls And I Shall Answer” had an intro that reminded me of LINKIN PARK for some reason, but continued the mediocrity of the last song made worse by really thin sounding guitars. Things get better on “Sepulchral Sorceress” with a much faster tempo and some slightly more imaginative guitar work, before “Burn My Coffin” returns back to the dull song formula seen earlier.

The 2^nd Half of the album shows signs of the energy of the opening track even if it is just drop-tune guitar abuse on “Ancient Storms Of War,” “Soul Stalker” offers really ghoulish lyrics while “The Wolves Of Isenguard” has the comical howling wolves and call to arms speech by guest Don of the Dead to break the monotonous guitar work. Skipping past the filler of the next track to the final two, “Doomed To Eternity” and “The One True Soul Of Darkness” are by far the most textured in sound and dynamic in arrangement and are easily the most headbanging tracks on show.

As a farewell to Jim Sadist who played drums in the studio and co-wrote some tracks, it’s fair to say he did a fantastic job on drums where he had rooms in tracks to do something, shame a lot of the songs themselves weren’t great and muddied some of the better tracks.