Artist: Early Graves
Album: Red Horse
Label: No Sleep (2012)
Key Jam: "Quietus"
Sounds Like: Entombed worship, basically. Red Horse is a textbook example of fast, riff-y metal that straddles the hardcore border a fair bit, complete with tons of d-beat and a vocalist who sounds like Jacob Bannon. It's also fairly straightforward, forgoing any of that Kurt Ballou produced thrashing for riffs, riffs, and more riffs (read: no blast beats). There are also guitar solos.
Pros: Lots and lots of sweet riffs, solid musicianship, songs are all well written.
Cons: Production is pretty bad, relies too heavily on its influences.
The Verdict: Not AOTY material, but I can fuck with it.
If I was going to listen to anyone play an album of Entombed covers, it would be Early Graves. As far as musicianship and songwriting go, these guys have got it down pat; there are no awkward transitions or uninspired moments, and the musicianship (especially the guitar playing) is above average in skill to say the least, so I guess I can't really complain about Red Horse. Unfortunately, however, I can't really give it a ringing endorsement either, because the only thing that stuck out from my listening experience (aside from the end of Quietus) is how many times I thought "holy shit, it sounds like I'm listening to that Converge cover of 'Wolverine Blues' through a tin can." Yeah, the production on this bad boy is nothing to write home about, unless the subject line of your leader reads: "list of good albums tarnished by piss-poor production." Still, this just a first(ish) impression, and I'll hopefully grow to appreciate Red Horse more with time. I also hope the band puts out an album of stuff that's more in the experimental direction they take at the end of "Quietus" in the future, because that shit is sick.
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