Back to Attack

The year was 1985, and it was time for one of Europe's (the world's) most underappreciated heavy metal acts to quickly follow up their 1984 masterpiece, Victim of Chains. That's both a great and a difficult situation to be in. First, can they hope for another out-of-this-world screaming, mega-ballsy heavy metal classic like the predecessor? Probably not. However, there was no way around attempting to recreate some of the magic that release created. The result? "Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars" – or so they say. This is precisely what happened to this band, on their fourth release, Back to Attack. As great as the predecessor? No, but on its own, this stands extremely tall and high, leaving much of the international heavy metal scene in the dust in terms of any aspect you could think of when considering the building blocks of Teutonic heavy metal.

The opening "I Love the Night" immediately relaxes us with its down-picked, energetic intro-riffing, separated by vibrating bass notes and its relatively speedy tempo. There is no reason to worry, the ballsy, crushing, manly, undeniable heavy metal spirit is still alive and well that we grew to love on the previous disc. Berti Majdan's usual, slightly (only slightly!) overbearing, maniacal vocal delivery is more than convincing, while the Dieth-Reinelt duo is still delivering those ridiculously elite dual-shredding sessions. Speaking of which... Check out the strongest piece of the record, the title song. It is full of melodies, juicy, cleverly crafted, joyful, upbeat riffing, and THAT solo section! Particularly towards the end! Did you hear that at 2:22? Yep, that's right. Sweep picking, on a German underground heavy metal album in 1985! This was way ahead of its time, because how many heavy metal bands can you think of that employed this technique this early on in the scene? Probably not many.

But it's not all about the loud 'n proud scratching, pounding distortion-filled heavy metal here. Gravestone, as we know is more multi-layered than that, and they wrote a mostly acoustic and melancholic ballad titled "Break Out". It beats Trance's song by a long shot of the same title, and it displays wonderfully smoothly flowing, soothing acoustic finger-picking, which is a major oddity from this band that does so amazingly well on the heavier side of heavy metal. They also can write insanely good ballads, let me tell you. Berti's shout at 1:42 as he screams "Do it FFAAASSSSTTTT!" is perfectly placed, instead of breaking the tranquility and peace, he somehow manages to nail the escalation of tensions in the song right before it turns distorted in the chorus. Despite his rather thick German accent, he pulls this off perfectly well, much better than certain others in the style at the time, though let's be real. The lyrics are far from being grammatically perfect, but the hilarious line that goes "the woman from before is now a 'used to be'" makes up for everything in humor and comedy. It's one of those awkwardly executed translations to English that native English speakers would find majorly unnatural and unintuitive, but how could you not find that amusing!? Besides, you know exactly what he's talking about, so the lyrics serve their purpose.

Next to all that clever resourcefulness, brilliancy, and mastery, it hurts me to say that there is, unfortunately, one downside to this record, and it is none other than the lustful "Dirty Tales". The main riff is a rock and roll-ish, party-flavored one, while the verse ones are pure, muscular heavy metal riffage. That is all great and well. But the chorus? "Dirty tales, diirrrrtttyyyy tallessssss"? It doesn't only sound bland and unimaginative, it's also annoying as hell by the second or third repetition. Then, of course, even this band, the almighty German heavy metal warriors couldn't resist the idiotic, stereotypical solutions, such as the female moaning at 3:03, for Christ's sake... Was this really necessary? It's a mystery why they had to include this filler here, but it sure as hell stains an otherwise magnificent gem.

Overall though, even with that fast-forward button-compelling "Dirty Tales" on it, this is a cult classic. The biggest problem is the context in which this release came out, the fact that it came out after one of the most relentless and scratching heavy metal beasts of all time, Victim of Chains. In the shadow of that record, it is pretty damn hard to try to get anything going that would be considered a worthy follow-up, but all in all, Gravestone did a perfect job at it, it could not have been done any better. If this was the only Gravestone release, this album would be looked at differently, but since they just had to release their magnum opus a year before, it's a little hidden. Do not let that fool you, because this is a wonderfully melodic, one hundred percent Teutonic-authentic, shining steel-built metal tour de force.