Adorned Graves is back with Being Towards a River, which sees the band continuing in their journey started with Out From the Depth of the Grave where they expertly crafted songs with elements of thrash, doom, and goth.
Adorned Graves first caught my attention in 2015 with the release of their ep The Hand of Death, and the title track that expertly blended elements of thrash and doom, sounding like a mix of Slayer and Black Sabbath. In 2017 the band released their first full length, Out From the Depth of the Grave, which instantly surprised me as the band crafted songs far more complex than on the debut ep, which leaned heavily toward the thrash end of things. The Kaiserslautern, Germany based band advertise their sound as one of Old School Thrash with a touch of Doom Metal and that would be a fair description. Similar to their last album which took on the story of Jonah, this one has a deeper overall concept to it as well. In this case the band had planned an outright speed and thrash ep, but during the writing process, things took a different turn and the band looked toward the river as a symbol of life and time with the idea of taking the listener on a journey from a river’s beginnings to its end in a allegory of life’s journey.
Perhaps taking some cues from Metallica who I hear in many of their songs, “Swallet Hole” opens with clean guitar reminiscent of that in the opening of “One”. Keyboards add atmosphere to this solemn track with spoken lyrics. Later in the track layered guitar solos elevate the track and set up the listener for the storm that is about to begin. Similar to their previous albums, production is clean and has a bit of an organic feel to it where all the instruments and vocals are clear and contribute to the overall sound and feel of the tracks.