Grabak – Sin

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It’s easy to imagine the dudes from German black metal brigade Grabak sitting around at a biergarten discussing a direction for their next record and being blown away by their own cleverness when they decided on releasing a concept album entitled Sin that would dedicate one song to each of the Seven Deadly Sins. Way to go, guys. You managed to put the effort of a full album cycle into the oldest metal cliché in the book. Once you look past that eye-rolling obviousness masquerading as high concept, the music on Sin is pretty decent. Grabak aren’t tearing down any boundaries here, but they aren’t being completely boring, either. The high falsettos (see Wrath – Into A Mental Inferno for some great ones) that break up the blackened screams are oddly reminiscent of To Mega Therion-era Celtic Frost, while the rest of the album sticks to fairly middling Mayhem worship, minus that band’s knack for experimentation. Sin isn’t as clever as Grabak thinks it is, but it’s solid black metal nonetheless.

Written by Brad Sanders
More: 2011, Albums, Black Metal, Quick.Play Reviews, Grabak