Graveworm – Fragments of Death

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Bordering the lines between death and black metal has been done by many, hence the popularity of the blackened death metal genre. Yet few who do have quite the sound of Graveworm, going one step further and walking the lines between death metal’s brutality, symphonic black metal’s atmosphere and goth metal’s doom and gloom. It makes for an easy and accessible sound, as far as extreme metal goes at least, but also one that doesn’t seem to have much room for manuever. That’s where Fragments of Death struggles – it is by no means a poor record, far from it. But even whilst the band move from one extreme to the other, between the extremes of slow, atmospheric instrumentals through to the marching death metal stomps that seem to be their signature, one can’t help but feel that at their emotional core Graveworm don’t seem to change much. As good as a blackened, synth-enhanced Amon Amarth should be, which pretty much describes the sound of Fragments of Death in a nutshell, Graveworm aren’t all that inspirational. Perhaps the expectations for what can be done with black metal – demonstrated by so many incredibly strong acts in the last few years – have become so high that Graveworm’s sound just doesn’t seem all that exciting. From a death metal perspective, the lack of any distinct technical guitar playing really lets it down. It is still a well produced record, and an appealing sound nonetheless, but Fragments of Death isn’t exciting – good, but hardly something that will make an impact in either the death or black metal scenes.

Written by James Donovan
More: 2011, Albums, Death Metal, Quick.Play Reviews, Graveworm