Departing in 2008, it’s been six years of silence from Graves in Sea, and a massive nine since we have been treated to a release. This year, however, they return with two, a split with Sourvein and their EP This Place is Poison (Eolian).
Opening the EP with standard distorted doom riffing, it holds little hint of monstrous tracks that await the listener. The band really begins to stand out when the vocals kick in. Although they use the usual growls, it’s mixed up with a high blackened rasping that really captures the sounds of torment. This is nowhere more evident than in opening track ‘This Place is Poison’, where the vocals take the song from sludgy riffing and make it deliciously filthy in its delivery.
The second half of the EP consists solely of Sabbath covers, a bold move by a band that has returned with so little original material. Unlike so many covers though these are no simple rehashes of the old songs and seem to breathe new life into tracks, infusing their own personal style into the sound. ‘Orchid’ is transformed into a slow dirge methodically marching onwards, the acoustic passages slowed and simplified till they teeter on the edge of recognition. The song is dripping in a melancholy that is not achieved by the original, a haunting passage that leads us through to the closing track ‘Lord of this World’. Dropping into a fuzzed wall of tone, it is a mix of stoner groove infused with a hefty dose of Graves at Sea’s bleak sludged out noise that gives the track a truly satisfying depth.
Despite all the years away, the band has pulled together an impressive EP. Coming in at a mere twenty minutes long, they are teasing us with yet another small taster of what they are capable of. The record appears to be as poisonous as the place though and I quickly found it hard to pull this one off my record player. It really is true to the lyrics of the opening track, “you can check out anytime, but you can never leave”.
9/10
CAITLIN SMITH