Grim Justice – Justice In The Night

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These Austrians can make a great noise! With their third studio album “Justice In The Night”, they have shown us once again that they can make an excellent hard rock album with an added hint of prog. The opening track is a short little number with some serious grit about it. We are greeted with this simple, but effective, guitar riff which is very tasty. Do you know what; the production isn’t the best I’ve ever heard but this is just a little band. It’d be wrong to expect an expert production. When Michela comes in with her supreme vocals it, actually helps smoothen everything out a little. She has a really good voice with a lot of energy.

“Curse Of The Moon” has a hint of DREAM THEATER in the cool guitar melody intro. I really like the way the drums satisfy the riffs on this track. Michela’s vocals once again shine bright in the mix. She has a beautiful voice, and it really suits the style that they’re going for. (Personal preference – Dare I say, a bit of keyboard would’ve helped the majesty of this song.) “Dark Soul” is a longer track which starts out with a hypnotic acoustic guitar intro blended with a light electric guitar melody. The drums and bass build beautifully together into a nice steady beat. Really pulls on the heart strings this one. We get a nice couple of minutes of heaviness before dropping back down into the swell of a soothing and hypnotic acoustic guitar section again to reflect. Then we break into a wonderful loud instrumental section. This is probably my favourite track on the album.

The next song I want to talk about is “Terminus III” which has a similar sort of vibe to “Dark Soul” to begin with. There are definitely some progressive elements at play here as we miss the occasional beat from the ends of phrases. I really love the guitar harmonies that are smothered all over this song. It feels like it has real purpose. I also love how the pace of this track is in no way rushed. It takes its time to develop slowly rather than rushing into the louder sections which makes it more worthwhile when you arrive at the louder bits. Truly great song.

“Hey Angel” has a great intro with a stunning guitar melody until we once again drop into one of these cool acoustic guitar sections where I could swear there’s a piano buried in the mix too! It’s really nice and the way the song transitions into the chorus from the verse is very satisfying. As the bridge develops, I simply have to brand this as at least a little proggy rather than straight up heavy metal or hard rock. With one of the most memorable choruses on the album, this makes for one of the best tracks on the album.

When the main riff falls in “When Night Falls” you can’t help but marvel at it’s stunning composition and skillful key positioning. This track is seriously cool and could easily get anyone’s head banging gently to the pedestrian speed of it. I smell a bit of BLACK SABBATH here with these tasty and naughty riffs. Pure genius at work. And with a massive ending to finish it off we drop down into the last track. “Argus” has a similar energy level to that of the opening couple of tracks. Very nice, gets your head moving and has a simplistic rhythm to it for the most part. This track has some of the heaviest riffs on the album and they work really well with Michela’s vocal style throughout.

GRIM JUSTICE have blessed the world with this great album for us all to enjoy. There is much to enjoy here and not really a moment of boredom, but there are a couple of bland spots where a little extra detail wouldn’t go amiss. I’d still say keyboards would work really well in this band, but they’re not to everybody’s liking. Great band, great album, long live these Austrian bosses.

Songwriting: 7
Musicianship: 8
Memorability: 7
Production: 7