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The Grotesquery

Tales Of The Coffin Born

Written by: PP on 18/01/2010 16:50:38

The Grotesquery is a new death metal supergroup consisting of Rogga Johansson and Kam Lee plus two more unknown fellas, a dynamic duo behind Bone Gnawer. The band is entirely based on a concept, because the two wanted to create a new project that would base all of its lyrical themes on the dark supernatural. The way it works is that Kam writes the lyrics, Rogga writes the riffs, and something evil hopefully comes out of that. Their debut album "Tales Of The Coffin Born" is where that dream is realized, as the concept and lyrics are based on H.P. Lovecraft's "Macabre Tales" and Ambrose Bierce & Edgar Allan Poe's poems and ghost stories. As such, the album has already been dubbed as "horror death metal", and appropriately so when you hear the concept and how it's executed.

The songs tell a horrifying story through the lyrics: that of a desperate man trying to save his son from death using necromancy and forbidden black magic, in which he has to take someone's life for every year his child is to live, and so the story revolves around this man brutally murdering people and how the child eventually becomes an incarnation of death as a direct result - which I guess will look something like this. While the lyrics play an important role in executing the story, the frightening horror-aspect is definitely created through the usage of deeply echoing spoken-word samples at the beginning of each track, where you really get the feeling that the man's speaking to us from 'the other side'. It's a well written story, I'll give them that.

Soundwise, the band recalls early 90s death metal bands like Massacre, Bolt Thrower, Gorefest and so forth. So they play death metal like it was meant to be played back in the original days, with the addition of a modern, crisp production that allows each instrument and the growls to really come to their own in the mix. Perhaps this is why so many people are crying 'cult release' already now, before the album has even been released to the public? And sure enough, if you like your death metal with some awesome riffs, you need look no further than "Coffin Born" or especially track two, "This Morbid Child", for some brutal death metal riffing from the absolute top percentile of the genre. Nevertheless, by the end of the album, I'm left yearning for a lot more variety, as at the end of the day, The Grotesquery songs don't sound too different from each other.

Download: This Morbid Child
For the fans of: Massacre, Bone Gnawer, Bolt Thrower, Gorefest
Listen: Myspace

Release date 22.01.2010
Cyclone Empire