Grave - Into The Grave (1991)

Sweden's mighty death metal warriors never surendered to the grunge explosion and stuck to their battleaxes and forevermore churned out their brand of miserable death metal. At the time Grave may now have received the accolades of Entombed or the any of the US acts, but they still raged with their terrifying brand of what I called at the time, 'grungy psychedelic death sludge', just check out the brutal yet twisted harmonies of 'Extremely Rotten Flesh' for a lesson in destructive death grind, or the mind numbing violence of 'Love' with its trigger drum assault or the face-ripping title cut. 'Into The Grave' is a minor death metal classic, and those of you who call yourself death metal fanatics will no doubt own it - if you don't, then why not ? - but like Unleashed's 'Where No Life Dwells' this was the epitome of underrated and orgiastic death noise, harsh, bleak and brutal yet with smatterings of originality that kept the band in good stead for years to come. Who would have thought such bands would still exist today, blasting out technical and pummelling music for no-one except their fans and themselves. In the death metal void time has no meaning, and that's why it always sounds ferocious to the ears. 8/10