Sinful Accession

Here is to another bunch of unsung heroes, the likes of which our dear metal underground is oh-so-ripe with. GRAVESIDE, along with slightly better known DEATH VOMIT, were one of the earliest bona fide proponents of no-frills brutal death metal on the Russian soil. This, their only full-length, dates back to those nostalgic yet romantic times in the early 90's when lines between good and evil were, ahem, more clear cut. As of several years ago the band was supposedly still active and working on the new material despite losing their charismatic front man/vocalist/bass player to the Grim Reaper, yet nothing has surfaced so far. Oh well, at least we have this one monument to relish, which was not particularly easy to come by until it surfaced on the net recently via a vinyl rip. Thank you to the kind folk out there.

GRAVESIDE were more brutal and technically proficient than the afore-mentioned DEATH VOMIT, thanks to the band's skills as well as their main influence being worn proudly on the sleeve: lots and lots of DEICIDE with additional smaller doses of MORBID ANGEL. All the classic facets of Glen Benton's "antikrist" troupe are present in spades and honed lovingly, be it the tightly controlled rhythm section, blistering guitar work and storming solos, or blasphemous lyrics. That's not all, though. GRAVESIDE not only put together a high quality worship, but, as true prodigies, managed to bring to the table a little something of their own. Witness the band's oddball atonal keyboard injections, popping up seemingly out of nowhere on a few tracks ("Prayersick" for example) and lending a truly unsettling flair to the proceedings; or the vocal performance being less over-the-top yet in some ways more evil sounding than those of maestro Benton's. Top it all off with adequately composed, rock-solid material and raw production (which, fortunately, does not totally drown out the bass), and you have one fine example of death metal done the way it was meant to.

Being relegated to the confines of the then infrastructure-poor Russian metal underground did not do the band any favors. Their impact was localized, and the record was for a long time available on vinyl and cassette only. It may be too late trying to secure GRAVESIDE a proper place in metal history, yet tracking this down and giving it a good listen would certainly be the right thing to do. Amen to that.