Gruel (Swe) - Gruel (2005) : Review

Gruel are are Swedish Death Metal band formed in recent years. They have one demo titled Gruel. For an Old School Death Metal band from Sweden, they have gone unnoticed and not much information about them can be found around. I stumbled upon the demo on my favourite kvlt blog, Sempiternal Esoterica, and boy, does this demo have some massive balls.

Gruel play Swedish Death Metal, but not being complete Entombed rip-offs, they choose to follow the footsteps of Abhoth. The influence of that band is glowing out of Gruel's music. Mid-paced, and sometimes slow, rather groovy, chunky riffs played with pure aggression and thrash mentality are further brutalized by the Boss pedal guitar tone Swedish Death Metal is known for. Like most old school Swedeath, Gruel are a just-for-fun band that is more interested in spitting out amazing riffs than making money or putting forward their ideologies through the music. They do their job really good here, and that makes for a more than a single listen. The riffs are addictive and headbang-worthy, coupled with maniacal thrashy guitar solos. The vocals simple growls that go well along with the Death Metal madness exploding from the music. The drumming is excellent, but nothing that stands-out, but does the job in keeping things interesting extremely well. The same applies for the bass guitar, which can be heard fuzzing and thumping, further heaving the balls contained within this short demo. This demo is very likely my second-favourite Swedish Death Metal demo, only next to Eructation, as it proves with the sheer amount of good riffs and addictive songwriting.

 

Highly recommended for old school Death Metal fans. Particularly Swedish Death Metal fans. Download their demo from here: Download (link taken from Sempiternal-Esoretica. Credits to that blog for making me aware of this band in the first place)