Grave Digger
Return of the Reaper
Napalm Records
2014
Following a rather disappointing album the Ancient Greek themed “Clash of the Gods” that unfortunately found our Teutonic friends, trying hard to evoke another largely concept-based album and largely coming up with slow and awkward sounding songs, they decide to abandon the “thematic” songwriting in favor of more direct, heavy metal “hymns” that are back to the basic in their “heart” and just quicken the “reaper” once more to give em, some inspiration… seems to work, nine hundredth time is the charm… ye know…
“Return of the Reaper” is a silly atmospheric intro with various sfx, that would befit a scary movie, that quickly gives way to the heavy metal breakdown of…
“Hell Funeral” that, I initially dismissed when I saw the video at first, thinking, that it sounded very cliché… on second thoughts... that’s exactly what you actually want bands like Grave Digger to do... be themselves, but manage to do it, without exactly copying themselves... managing to do it in a cool way, without exactly rehashing the same old riffs…
“War God” ups the ante further, and sounds menacing and punishing with bass and drums going hellbent… the simple but totally effective chorus, really “haunts” and I just love Boltendahl’s, Wenglish… Wengence motherfuckers!!! It’s quite epic... I’m not really making fun of him, it actually, one of those little things that when done “a bit” but not overdone – it’s really a bit of a funny trademark of a lot of “Northern” vocalists, particularly Swedish ones “Wicktory!”, but also Germans as well!
“Tattooed Rider” drops the speed considerably and even if it has a nice riff, and a nice flow, something in its chorus is quite amiss...
“Resurrection Day” goes back to the hard-hitting tactics and throws a plethora of riffs at the listener at high speed and even a flashy solo but somehow it also leaves something more to be desired...
“Season of the Witch” is a massive sounding mid tempo number with a great atmosphere, choirs, enveloping cloudscapes rich in bass and a quite dark and mystifying performance by Boltendahl.
“Road Rage Killer” almost explains itself, by its title, it’s a fast but largely unimpressive number, that only boasts some nice guitar lines here and there... filler basically.
“Grave Decorator” opens with a tough as nails riff that keeps on going for quite a bit actually... and it sort of develops into something quite silly sounding... while there are some nice ideas in there, and ever production wise, the panning used, is a smart idea for instance, “that chorus” just made me cringe…
“Satan’s Host” is a fun under 3 minute speed/punk inspired Motorhead spirited number that just doesn’t really take itself seriously at all and sounds quite differently – almost like Motorunningwildigger! Which I suppose ain’t bad!
“Dia De Los Muertos” has lots of cowbell (Hey! Moo!) but it sounds rather sorely uninspired, when it comes to the chorus... the verses aren’t too bad... it might be a hit however down in Latin America so I can see the point in doing it…
The ridiculously titled “Death Smiles at All of Us” begins with some silly harpsichord (?) but midway manages to distinguish itself from a lot of other songs that dong have equally outstanding choruses.
Closing the album is “Nothing to Believe” which is a ballad... and with people like Chris ballads are a bit thorny, because of their naturally very hoarse voices… still because of the passionate and honest singing it comes off quite sincerely… quite a nice closing statement actually.
The limited edition of the album features a second CD with 2 bonus tracks and 8 acoustic live songs I would presume from some performance with the so…
“The Emperor's Death” seems to be the band’s attempt to jump the shark and do something “conceptual” again – probably having to do with Roman history this time and it sounds very much like a leftover from “Clash” and a bit tiresome to be quite honest...
“Rebel of Damnation” is a mid-tempo number about the heavy metal lifestyle and it’s cliché and tiresome with only a good riff to account for it and lots of toe curling lyrics going on against it.
The acoustic “set” consists of “The Round Table”, “The Dark of the Sun”, “The Curse of Jaques”, “The Ballad of Mary”, “The Last Supper”, “Yesterday”, “Rebellion” and last but not least “Heavy Metal Breakdown”… well the ballads, seem to work OK… the more “electric” songs do sound a little like “drunk karaoke” in a tavern…
This second disk is added value, but on the other hand is not exactly great value with a vast number of live albums, collaborations etc. out there on the market for “cheap” on some of the band’s former labels.
An improvement over the last Grave Digger album, well produced and everything but still containing quite a lot of “mediocre moments”. I realize that the previous album was really, pretty abysmal now, comparing it to this. Fans of the band will find it more to their “taste”, but that is quite a clique, as of late, that the “Diggers” are catering to… and reading “9/10” and album of the month/near perfect... reviews on this album on sites just shows me that promotion is a “long hand” but really can’t conceal the fact that this band is between a rock and a hard place and has been there for a long time now.
“Return of the Reaper” is a silly atmospheric intro with various sfx, that would befit a scary movie, that quickly gives way to the heavy metal breakdown of…
“Hell Funeral” that, I initially dismissed when I saw the video at first, thinking, that it sounded very cliché… on second thoughts... that’s exactly what you actually want bands like Grave Digger to do... be themselves, but manage to do it, without exactly copying themselves... managing to do it in a cool way, without exactly rehashing the same old riffs…
“War God” ups the ante further, and sounds menacing and punishing with bass and drums going hellbent… the simple but totally effective chorus, really “haunts” and I just love Boltendahl’s, Wenglish… Wengence motherfuckers!!! It’s quite epic... I’m not really making fun of him, it actually, one of those little things that when done “a bit” but not overdone – it’s really a bit of a funny trademark of a lot of “Northern” vocalists, particularly Swedish ones “Wicktory!”, but also Germans as well!
“Tattooed Rider” drops the speed considerably and even if it has a nice riff, and a nice flow, something in its chorus is quite amiss...
“Resurrection Day” goes back to the hard-hitting tactics and throws a plethora of riffs at the listener at high speed and even a flashy solo but somehow it also leaves something more to be desired...
“Season of the Witch” is a massive sounding mid tempo number with a great atmosphere, choirs, enveloping cloudscapes rich in bass and a quite dark and mystifying performance by Boltendahl.
“Road Rage Killer” almost explains itself, by its title, it’s a fast but largely unimpressive number, that only boasts some nice guitar lines here and there... filler basically.
“Grave Decorator” opens with a tough as nails riff that keeps on going for quite a bit actually... and it sort of develops into something quite silly sounding... while there are some nice ideas in there, and ever production wise, the panning used, is a smart idea for instance, “that chorus” just made me cringe…
“Satan’s Host” is a fun under 3 minute speed/punk inspired Motorhead spirited number that just doesn’t really take itself seriously at all and sounds quite differently – almost like Motorunningwildigger! Which I suppose ain’t bad!
“Dia De Los Muertos” has lots of cowbell (Hey! Moo!) but it sounds rather sorely uninspired, when it comes to the chorus... the verses aren’t too bad... it might be a hit however down in Latin America so I can see the point in doing it…
The ridiculously titled “Death Smiles at All of Us” begins with some silly harpsichord (?) but midway manages to distinguish itself from a lot of other songs that dong have equally outstanding choruses.
Closing the album is “Nothing to Believe” which is a ballad... and with people like Chris ballads are a bit thorny, because of their naturally very hoarse voices… still because of the passionate and honest singing it comes off quite sincerely… quite a nice closing statement actually.
The limited edition of the album features a second CD with 2 bonus tracks and 8 acoustic live songs I would presume from some performance with the so…
“The Emperor's Death” seems to be the band’s attempt to jump the shark and do something “conceptual” again – probably having to do with Roman history this time and it sounds very much like a leftover from “Clash” and a bit tiresome to be quite honest...
“Rebel of Damnation” is a mid-tempo number about the heavy metal lifestyle and it’s cliché and tiresome with only a good riff to account for it and lots of toe curling lyrics going on against it.
The acoustic “set” consists of “The Round Table”, “The Dark of the Sun”, “The Curse of Jaques”, “The Ballad of Mary”, “The Last Supper”, “Yesterday”, “Rebellion” and last but not least “Heavy Metal Breakdown”… well the ballads, seem to work OK… the more “electric” songs do sound a little like “drunk karaoke” in a tavern…
This second disk is added value, but on the other hand is not exactly great value with a vast number of live albums, collaborations etc. out there on the market for “cheap” on some of the band’s former labels.
An improvement over the last Grave Digger album, well produced and everything but still containing quite a lot of “mediocre moments”. I realize that the previous album was really, pretty abysmal now, comparing it to this. Fans of the band will find it more to their “taste”, but that is quite a clique, as of late, that the “Diggers” are catering to… and reading “9/10” and album of the month/near perfect... reviews on this album on sites just shows me that promotion is a “long hand” but really can’t conceal the fact that this band is between a rock and a hard place and has been there for a long time now.