Germany to me has been the lifeblood of traditional heavy metal in historical difficult times, i.e. the 1990’s. Some massive bands have graced us with their presence over the years, but a little over 3 years ago, Germany produced Gravety, whom from the opening tune ‘Stroke of Fate’ immediately remind me of the UK’s Conquest of Steel. Sword brothers Gravety may well be, however, the vocals mix a little melodeath screaming from time to time to make things sound a little more diverse. The band themselves call this thrash ‘n’ doom metal, in some respects it is a combination of these styles, but the doom element, I am not really sure about unless you take the title tracks momentum and style that reminds me of epic Candlemass. Admittedly in some quarters of this album, I am drawn to the conclusion of run of the mill metal for the masses, there are moments of pure metal glory, however, not being purely thoroughbred in the metal arts, these other influences distract me as the listener.
To be fair, the combination works, it just depends on what you as a listener will want from a band that is camping in a muddy festival site with the traditional metal crowd preaching some hefty epic doom. Once the thunder force of ‘False Messiah’ hits the turntable, then you are cooking on full power. With typical galloping guitar rhythm’s that are tried and tested, the arrangement gets into more epic areas, it’s pretty cool, especially the solo, which does have a thrash feel to the second guitar, but the gruff vocals don’t really do it for me, the true metal vocal delivery is much more palatable.
All in all musically, this has promise, however it is a little confusing, it’s not all what it promises to be due to its on and off metal and doom hybrid. That may appeal to most, I prefer the pure metal attack with energetic vocal deliveries, however, Gravety should not be immediately discounted, and there is something here for sure.
(6.5/10 Paul Maddison)
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