Slashed and bitten, strangled and clawed into shocked and bleeding muss, they were hacked into human shanks for feeding after their hunger-maddened assailant had his fill of gut-and-haunches. For the “werewolf of Dole” death was a necessity, nourishment for the desperation of providership and the disturbing gore resultant was animal butchery in his mind. Themed after real and unreal relationships with death this sophomore full-length album from Vancouver, British Colombia-based death metal quartet GRAVE INFESTATION muses over murderers and outrageous histories of human savagery as they pull together another grip of late 80’s inspired ‘old school’ death metal horror. ‘Carnage Gathers‘ is a traditional follow-up, a push toward more exaggerated extremes in most every regard, but as the band suggests it quickly begins to feel like tirade back to an even more feral, obsessed version of themselves.

Grave Infestation formed as a trio circa 2018 between musicians associated with experimental extreme crust group Ahna and black/death metal band Ceremonial Bloodbath with a sound focused on old school death metal in the vein of peak underground invention (’87-’91). Although they cite bands like Autopsy in reference to their sound and this album was engineered/mixed via Greg Wilkinson @ Earhammer Studios their work thus far has had its own floaty kick to its roll, surely inspired by the best (Nihilist, Repulsion, and Abhorrence) per the thrashing punkish action of their first two demo tapes (re: ‘Infesticide‘ compilation) the first of which I’d reviewed finding similarity with Death Strike to some degree and the second of which included a second guitarist. That bounding, creeped energy eventually translated to a full-length (‘Persecution of the Living‘, 2022) which I’d reviewed favorably, concluding: “It is the sort of death metal record you walk away from wanting more, ready for the next one already, and appreciating just how well they’ve served the most promising moments of their demo era.” while also finding more clear distinction between this band and the increasingly death/crust oriented direction taken by Ahna nearby.

Despite having enjoyed everything these folks’d released to date I’ve no real set expectations for any ‘old school’ minded band in times of oversaturation as some go backwards in time, others obsess over “progress” as their skill ceiling crumbles, and most of the 2015 ’til today crowd have gone with the flow of trends unto disappointing results. In the case of Grave Infestation they’ve kept it true to their original intent without flatly repeating themselves and releasing the same album twice. If there was a lane chosen here it is something akin to regression as ‘Carnage Gathers‘ is a head-down, stick to the riffs, bark and howl garage level death metal album in the best tradition. These folks still carry a torch for extreme hardcore punk, early Scandinavian death metal, and of course ‘Severed Survival‘ as their familiar yet non-specific worship speaks to the ugliness and insanity of the early days of death metal music. In this sense their contemporaries are fewer today, maybe Anthropophagous or the vaguely developed Acts of Impalement, in terms of remaining rooted in a very specific classic sound and retuning it to their own tics of performance and interest beyond.

‘Persecution of the Living‘ was no less of a creep-assed death metal album though you might recall it’d leaned into the doomed and demented more of ten than expected (re: it’s title track) and by comparison I’ve found ‘Carnage Gathers‘ is generally too focused on punkish, thrashing maniac flow to step so heartily into death-doom paced momentum and the trade-off here is the more slapping meter of the drums and some extra ‘Scream Bloody Gore‘ and circa ’85 Master-esque rhythms (“Murder Spree”) characterize this album as primal if not primitivist in some sense. In fact the other side of the coin is the march-worthy ‘In Battle there is No Law‘-isms from those earlier tapes where offset blasts and eerie leads make a fresh first impression via opener “Living Inhumation”. If you’ll recall my review for the previous album this’d been exactly the result I was most interested in, particularly retaining that crazed, inadvisable feeling of 80’s death metal and not the commodified version(s) that followed.

‘Carnage Gathers‘ finds its hottest spots of action when we’re in the woods, the momentum of the riff carrying the pace on the upper end of mid-paced and kinda big-grooving over ruthlessly slung leads, retched-out vocals and stomping riffs and nowhere is this swaggering step more potent up front than “Inhuman Remains”, a cyclone of riff that retains its composure amidst some of their nastiest whammy-dives and hurling growls to date. The thrashing metalpunk bite of the verses on “Black Widow” and the cruel insanity of the vocals on the brutal apex of the spin “The Anthropophagus” follow as major highlights for my own taste. To be fair this does feel like a slightly auld Finndeath-juiced spin on what newer Autopsy has been up to lately to some degree but there’s no denying Grave Infestation are on a roll by the time the mid-album hits.

It is all downhill from there, at least in the sense that the grotesque high of “The Anthropophagus” resets the tempo and some of the bigger swingin’ riffs on the album follow said momentum via “Drenched in Blood” and the aforementioned high-energy closer “Murder Spree”, a real kick in the ass toward putting the whole deal on repeat. I particularly like the rhythm guitar runs (~1:32 minutes in) which complete the thought of the riff they’d built around “Drenched in Blood”, all of it reeking of true classics inspired fare and morbid-thrashing death in general; While I wouldn’t say there are any wild surprises or complete breaks of character found on a full spin through ‘Carnage Gathers‘ Grave Infestation‘ve not run out of riff ideas as the entirety of the album entertains front to back without falter. Their ideation of classic underground death metal interest still rings true while avoiding plainest iteration, setting their work well above-average for the style/niche in general thanks to a unique approach to ‘old school’ rhythms. Not every moment will prove drop-dead memorable for the average listener though the die-hard types interested in more mid-paced, varied rhythms should find some thrill in their craft overall. A high recommendation.

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