Grave Desecrator - Insult

With sophomore album Insult, Rio de Janeiro’s Grave Desecrator serves up a raucous slab of quintessentially Hell’s Headbangers-tailored black/death that will mostly thrill the seemingly rapidly expanding fan base of this particular sub-genre of aural terror.  South America, and Brazil in particular with its tropical climate, pristine beaches, and staggering 70% of the population devoutly catholic, actually has a pretty solid history of hard hitting, rough proto-black and death metal bands; most importantly the ugly, unholy, godfathers of evil Sarcófago.  And believe it or not kiddies, the currently painfully god-awful shit fest known as Sepultura even started off playing some bad ass untamed primeval death infused thrash metal.  Grave Desecrator certainly does their homeland no injustice with their furious intensity and uncontrolled blasphemy.

Insult is an assaultive barrage; a burly maelstrom of mostly one-speed-kills-all insanity that scarcely comes up for air for the entire exhausting 45 minutes it’s beating you.  Dirty as hell and with far more in common with the ancients of death metal than anything presently identified as black metal.  Solos shriek and wail in a classic Morbid Angel manner and pummeling riffs roar like Morbid Tales at 45rpm.  When the songs are exciting and memorable, like album opener “Black Vengeance” and the fantastic title song, the results are exhilarating, but the album suffers somewhat significantly from what is often the one major downfall of this style of metal, and that’s a strong tendency to begin sounding redundant as the album goes on.  With the exception of the quality thrashed out breakdown at the midpoint of “Serpent Seedline” absolutely getting the blood pumping with its primal destruction, so little variation in tempo and dynamic from song to song can find the second half of the album slipping by you without really making much of a noteworthy impression one way or the other.  Not as if it’s bad, but it might be difficult at first to recall whether or not it was particularly good.    Some of this may be due to a longer than average for the genre running time.  A four song EP or 7” would definitely be a far more convincing format of attack for Grave Desecrator, but it must be asked if the band simply lacks some of the spark that makes the masters of black/death like Proclamation and Blasphemophagher so effective.

Release Date: September 28, 2010
Label: Ketzer Records /
Hells Headbangers

TRACK LISTING

1.  Black Vengeance
2.  Stared to Hell
3.  Hellhound Breed
4.  Insult
5.  Stained by Blood
6.  Dangerous Cult
7.  Serpent Seedline
8.  Decline of Faith
9.  Jesus Joint
10.  Poisoned Purity
11.  The Satanic Coven
12.  Baphomet

Total playing time:  22:14

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*Comments:

Reviewer: J. A. Burt

February 13, 2011