Back to violence for Graceless.
For their fourth album Icons of Ruins, Remco Kreft (guitar/vocals, Just Before Dawn, Soulburn, ex-Xenomorph), Björn Brusse (guitar), Jasper Aptroot (bass, ex-Xenomorph) and Marc Verhaar (drums, Soulburn, ex-Xenomorph) sign up with Listenable Records.
God Shines in Absence gets things off to a heavy start, quickly accelerating and taking advantage of its Old School influences to offer a sticky, aggressive mix, rounded off by Remco‘s vociferations. Death Metal fans will be won over even before the piercing harmonics appear, but the jerky rhythm continues to molest us before letting Sanctified Slaughter explode and deliver a massive groove. The riffs soon become heavy again, taking advantage of the change of pace to get our skulls stirring with this solid approach, until we dip into anguish with the dissonance of Lash Me to My Painful Death, which follows with horrific inspirations. The track is much slower, bordering on melancholic tones that contrast with the vocalist’s growl, but the violence resurfaces with driving patterns on Night of the Slain, whose almost playful rhythm smacks of Death’n’Roll in contrast to the more melodic leads. The track remains highly effective, but gives way to Hardening of the Heart, which allows us a moment’s respite before returning to more energetic, catchy riffs that come in waves, interspersed with more mysterious leads. The massive break is a welcome addition to this ever-changing track, but it’s now with a more suffocating sound that Ungodliness comes to break our necks, complemented by ominous harmonics to give these passages an eerie touch. Rise of the Blackest Sun follows, with tones quite similar to the previous track in dissonance, but the majority of the rhythm seems livelier and perfectly conducive to crowd movement, despite a much softer break. The sound picks up again before moving on to the heavy A King in the Filth, which smacks of greasy Doom, but knows perfectly well how to get our skulls moving with solid passages, but the composition passes quickly enough, and makes way for Beneath Starless Skies. The atmosphere is totally different, and the track is almost restful with its airy guitars before its strange bass interlude, and although the sound becomes more intense, the vocals remain almost plaintive, the exact opposite of Resurrection of the Graveless, the last track, which returns to that jerky, aggressive sound to which we like to shake our fists and break our necks during a concert.
Rooted in aggressive Death and greasy Doom, Graceless serve up a raw mix with Old School roots, as asserted on Icons of Ruins, while even allowing themselves a few original touches that are not unpleasant to hear!
85/100