Old School Review: Grave ‘And Here I Die…Satisfied’

In 1996 I was on my way back to Quantico Virginia from upstate New York during my 4 years in the Marine Corps and I decided to stop at a mall in Utica, NY to see what the record store had. I bought a cd that I had been looking for (I think it might have been Misfits Collection 1 or 2) and had a few more bucks to spare so I picked up a 6 song EP from a band that I had heard of but never heard. The name was Grave. How could you go wrong with a name like that. The name of the Ep was “And Here I Die…Satisfied“.

I was a Jesus hating metal-head back then so the song that first sold me totally on this band was “I Need You“, which sound considerably like Entombed’s Blood Song. Why did it sell me? Cool lyrics: ” Pray to your god, you pray as you spit red. Pray to your god, your god will fail and you will be dead…”. I mean, come on. For any metal head that find religion revolting and hypocritical, those are lyrics to live by. These days my views have changed but the song is still cool. The rest of the songs are cool as well.

The production on this CD is not too bad. The vocals are bright enough with just enough reverb and the guitars sound thick. The lyrical content is the usual death metal extravaganza of Satan and Death, but that’s what we love about the music right? Sometimes. Jorgen Sandstrom was on vocals and bass back then, but Ola Lingren is the only original member to date taking the duties of Vocals and guitar. Jorgen left the band and went on to play in Entombed from 1995-2004.

Grave were signed to Century Media back then but after 15 years and 7 albums with Century, they most recently signed with Regain Records and released Dominion VIII back in April.

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