By: Ernesto
Aguilar
Album Type: Full Length
Date Released:
04/05/2018
Label: New Heavy
Sounds
Grave Lines
demonstrates irrefutable growth, confidence and deftness with a palette of
emotional peaks and valleys.
“Fed Into
The Nihilist Engine” CD//DD//2LP track listing:
1).
Failed Skin
2).
Shame/Retreat
3).
Self Mutilation by Fire and Stone
4).
Loss/Betrayal
5).
Silent Salt
6).
Loathe/Displace
7).
The Greae
8).
Guilt/Regret
9).
The Nihilist Engine
The Review:
The
United Kingdom's doom masters Grave Lines smashed their way onto the scene
in 2016 with its "Welcome to
Nothing," a debut that reveled in its sweltering power – blistering
drums courtesy of Julia Owen, Jake Harding's disparate vocal attack and a style
that puts a noise/sludge pace on you that would make Vasyl Lomachenko himself
proud. And, happily, the band is back with
"Fed Into The Nihilist Engine," a rugged return if ever there was
one.
Grave Lines is intriguing
because of its changeups. "Failed
Skin," the album's 14-plus-minute opener, is by far the longest cut,
and it is melting as it is impregnable. Don't let its gentle, loping opening
chords fool you. As the bass kicks in, Harding descends from the heavens, with
his punctuated and flaring vocals that rattle you out of your slumber. That
clarity of voice carries on to "Shame
Retreat," an ethereal song that makes the most of its strengths.
Grave Lines is unctuous
with its heavy tracks, which slosh in hardcore influences, such as "Self Mutilation by Fire and Stone."
You also witness promise with its gracefully constructed folk-tinged songs like
"Loss Betrayal" and "Loathe Displace." The sharper
among us might ask if the group is pining to be a metal team or more a hard
rock band with departures like this. And in fairness there may be some
attention to album arrangement, or else it becomes
heavy-to-lighter-to-heavy-to-lighter song, rinse and repeat. Nevertheless the
tracks themselves are strong, devouring your ears and imagination.
Now
into its second album, Grave Lines demonstrates irrefutable growth,
confidence and deftness with a palette of emotional peaks and valleys. As
"The Nihilist Engine" closes out the album, it is impossible to avoid
the many paths before the group, as well as one's own curiosity for what's
next.
“Fed Into The Nihilist
Engine”
is available here
