We Came for the Dead!!!

Whenever I hear this album chills shoot down my spine. It takes me away to the filthy, gore-soaked land of Creepsylvania, and I know that four devilish figures are waiting there for me. I am aware that such a situation sounds awful to the average person, but to us Ghoul fans, we know this means fun. We Came for the Dead!!! is a landmark album of the 21st century. That's quite a claim, but when you'll see what I mean when you here riff after riff and solo after solo that this record has to offer. Ghoul falls into place amongst bands whose debuts were nearly flawless with this wonderfully macabre release.

I'm not sure why Ghoul decided to change the sound of their band after this record. The production and instrumental tones of Maniaxe and Splatterthrash were nice, but not much can beat the great sound of down tuned guitars, blasting drums, and the pure old school death metal-like sound that We Came for the Dead!!! embodies. When you combine that with entertaining solos, vocals, and groove sections like at the end of "Tomb After Tomb," you get an unstoppable and deadly formula that will never cease to please. Cremator and Digestor show the traits of seasoned musicians without even trying. From the chilling harmonized leads and the sweeping solos like in the title track here, these two men can do it all. Fermetor laid out the foundation that those could play to, and has some of this best blast beats offered by any drummer of this era. Of all of the "Fermentors" that played in Ghoul, the one by the name of Raul Varela has been my favorite. This is one of the only Ghoul albums that features elements of grindcore, and that is what makes it so unique. Almost all of Ghoul's future releases would sound similar to each other, with a lot more humor on them, but not this one. We Came for the Dead!!! is everything that a death/thrash metal/grindcore band should sound like. There is a wonderful no nonsense kind of sound that this group of songs produces.

As mentioned above, there was a great groove to this album that went from start to finish and just seemed to get crazier and crazier as the album went on. "Tomb After Tomb," "We Came for the Dead," and "Graveyard Mosh" were groovy indeed and featured a wide array of tempos and keys. Despite the band's constant evolution, Cremator and his freaky fellows never lost touch of their sense of how to write catchy, groove centered music.

If I had to name one problem with this album, then it would be the intros. I know that the beginning of "Ghoul/Graveyard Mosh" is "cool" but does there need to be almost a minute and a half of silence? Nope. I don't want to have to listen to a long intro, but maybe a shorter one like at the beginning of "Tomb After Tomb." And the only other problem I had was that the extremely low gurgly vocals would get washed over by the band's full sound, but that's about it.

The amount of respect I have for Ghoul is immense. They know how to make a "gimmicky" album not cheesy, make gory death metal that doesn't sound ridiculously stupid, and most of all, they are masters of their instruments. This album shows just how well this band can dish out pure chaos. So when I hear a witch cackle over the sound of chainsaw guitars, I know that it's Ghoul and their creepily enjoyable We Came for the Dead!!!