ALBUM REVIEW: It’s Only Midnight – Deathgrave

DEATHGRAVE is not just another grindcore band. For the past 10 years, this rabble of West Coast veterans has been taking elements of death metal, grind, noise and hardcore punk to concoct the bile they spew forth – and it turns out they’ve gotten pretty bloody good at it if their new sophomore album It’s Only Midnight is anything to go by.

Ant Baby may be named after two tiny, delicate things, but this opening song is anything but. A madcap death metal riff from Greg Wilkinson precedes an inhuman grumble from Andre Cornejo while the bass of Fern Alberts and drums of Clint Zane go absolutely haywire in the background. It’s a gargantuan start that gets pulses racing and heads banging, before the slower, doom-soaked beginning of On All Fours. Lulling you into a false sense of security, danger rears its head once more as Wilkinson and Zane ramp up the intensity to allow Cornejo to go full tilt with his demented vocals.

As an album, It’s Only Midnight is fantastic: the songs each throw different splashes of colour at a rancid canvas but remain cohesive and true to DEATHGRAVE’s MO. But it’s the individual performances that really elevate this release. Each member states their case to be crowned MVP and they each deserve it at different points, whether it’s Zane for his ability to keep everyone in check with a deluge of polyrhythms and blast beats; Alberts for shaking the core of the planet with his rumbling bass; Wilkinson for his ingenious guitar work that makes this album impossible to pin to any one genre; or Cornejo for one of the year’s most elastic and commanding vocal performances in extreme metal.

There’s a dark sense of fun laced throughout It’s Only Midnight, too. With song names like Scratch Sniff Peel Snack and Resur’wreck’ed, it’s clear that DEATHGRAVE is not a band to take themselves too seriously, even if the music itself is all business, all the time. Just take a look at the video they created for Your Rulers Are Here: a grotesque mini B-movie horror that sees a bar full of people eviscerated by some foul lifeform. 

Whatever you want to label this album as, It’s Only Midnight toes the line of having something for everyone, without ever being too accessible. DEATHGRAVE sucks you in and gnashes you about in their monolithic jaws, leaving you tumbling around in a pool of barbarism and weirdness, before spitting you back out and leaving you to figure out what just happened. Chances are, you’ll be begging for them to do it again. And again. And again…

DEATHGRAVE is not just another grindcore band, and It’s Only Midnight is not just another grindcore album. A stunning show of strength and flexibility without ever feeling overdone or phoned in, it perfectly combines the highs of the old-school progenitors and the madness of the new-school innovators, creating some foul, loathsome beast that is simply awesome. Your (new) rulers are here.

Rating: 9/10

It’s Only Midnight is out now via Tankcrimes.

Like DEATHGRAVE on Bandcamp.