Grave Forsaken - s/t

Hailing from Australia comes a thrash/death band called Grave Forsaken.  Fans of Mortification and Tourniquet may find a new band to like here.  Tourniquet fans won't find much in the vein of technical thrash, but there are some similarities here with Luke Easter's vocals.  Mortification fans will find a mix musically of more recent Mort and Break the Curse era Mort.  Vocally, besides the Luke Easter influences comes a very heavy Steve Rowe influence.  Both their yelled/thrash vocals and their death vocals are very Rowe sounding.  Heck, the doomy song "The Celebrity Judge and the Sinners - Part I" sounds like it could've actually been Steve Rowe singing.  The song has a similar feel to the song "Hardware" off the Silver Cord is Severed album.  The band...in theory...could be the next up and coming Mortification.  They have the brutal shredding guitars and harsh vocals, mixed with the very bold Christian lyrics that got Mortification so much attention back in the early '90's.  Now, whether they ever put out an album with the clout of Scrolls of the Megilloth or Post Momentary Affliction remains to be seen.  This band is still very rough around the edges, so I may be jumping the gun a little bit.  They have the basic Mortification sound down, but they need to travel their own direction a little more instead of relying so much on the sound of another popular band.  And while the production isn't horrible for an indie demo, they could definitely use some improvement in that area as well.

The band will be recording a follow-up demo to this one that should be released in August 2005.  In the meantime, you can download all the songs off of this demo for free off of the band's website.  (See below).

Rating: 51/100

Review By: Matt Morrow

Label: Independent

Total Songs: 4

Total Time: 20:16

Tracklisting: 1. The Calling, 2. The North Wind, 3. The Celebrity Judge and the Sinners - Part I, 4. Death on the Cross.

Best Songs: Track 4.

Band Lineup: Vaughan Gregory - Vocals/Guitars, Elias Salmela - Guitar/Vocals, Matt Skipworth - Bass/Backing Vocals, Tim Steadman - Drums.

Band Website: http://www.graveforsaken.com