Untitled

Despite taking caverncore to new heights of meme status with their untitled albums, songs, and band members, Grave Upheaval still have released some decent quality material. With members from other bands in the Aussie black/death scene like Temple Nightside, Portal,and Impetuous Ritual, the band's dark dankness (dank darkness?) succeeds in overwhelming the ears. Though considering how repetitive their first album was and despite the continued use of their untitled gimmick, it is interesting to see that their second album is much more accessible than not only their first but also anything Portal or Impetuous Ritual have released.

Don't be fooled though. This album is still dark and cryptic sounding as expecting by anybody half capable at pulling this little niche genre off. Compared to their first though, the production on this album is much more clear sounding and the music feels more dynamic. The guitars don't sound quite as fuzzy and the drums are much more audible. But it's still very dark and heavy with a lot of the creepier parts being the slower paced moments which are abundant on the first half of the album.

That being said, there's nothing that makes this album sound especially unique either. In fact, hearing how similar it sounds to The Hecatomb by Temple Nightside, I feel like this was supposed to be a followup album for that band that got scrapped. It has the same howling vocals, same guitar tone; besides missing track titles, the only other difference is some tracks on The Hecatomb being in a different key.

Aside from that, the other big issue I have with this Grave Upheaval album is the pace. The front half of the album is really slow while almost all the fast bits are on the back half. The songs themselves are decent enough that I wouldn't take issue with them singularly, but the fact that the first half of the album drags on for so much makes it hard to sit through that by the time track V comes up and the tempo cranks up, it's easy for me to have lost interest.

This album is by no means bad; there's some really cool moments that caverncore will find delectable. But this could've been arranged a little better. The musicians know what they're doing. They just need to turn it into a consistent album and it isn't quite this one.