Grave - Soulless (1994)^{Release ID: 3794}

A cleaner, groovier album for Grave that unfortunately doesn't live up to their former glories.

It doesn't take long to figure out that Soulless is a very different album to the Grave releases that came before it. Previously Grave had been one of the numerous bands from Stockholm in Sweden (along with Entombed, Dismember, Unleashed and Carnage) that shared an extremely distinct death metal sound. Out of all those bands, Grave were possibly the most brutal, with their debut Into the Grave and follow-up You'll Never See containing rather chunky riffs, crushing drumming and roaring death growls. While some of that sound remains on Soulless (mostly due to being recorded once again at Sunlight), the overall intensity has been dropped in favour of a cleaner, and at times grooving sound.

But then they weren't the first band to make this transition. Entombed followed up two cracking death metal albums with Wolverine Blues, which pretty much kicked off the death 'n' roll subgenre singlehandedly. I personally find that album to be rather disappointing and I have to say that I feel similar about this one. It's not a matter of Grave selling out, it's just that putting their music into this style highlights the band's weaknesses and loses some of their positives. Sandstrom's growls have lost their intensity and his decipherable vocals highlight how terrible the lyrics are. Let's look at the title track. "I'm soulless to the core, I'm 666, I am your death, I am the crucifix, on which you are nailed." Atrocious to say the least and would have been better hidden behind indecipherable growls!

As for the musicianship, the drumming has also been watered down, often plodding along harmlessly without any sort of purpose other than keeping the beat. There are still some decent riffs to be found, which saves Soulless from being entirely worthless, but there are plenty of forgettable ones as well. Turning Black, I Need You, Unknown and Scars all have their moments, but most of the album fails to excite me the way their previous albums did. I can't blame Grave for trying something different. After all, no-one wants to do the same thing over and over, particularly when you sound like numerous other outfits. Unfortunately, this little experiment finds the band in decline, which would inevitably end with the guys calling it quits for a few years.