Gein and the Graverobbers

The Passion of the Anti-Christ (Necro-tone)
by Craig Regala

This is as pure a representation of American reality as The Empire State Building, the painting American Gothic, or Edgar Allan Poe. Here lies American’s eternal search for the new, or at least the chance to carve your name in it. Like kids going into the haunted house on the hill for no good reason excepting the curiosity of conquest; delving and poking into the unknown, running into the everlasting reality of death while refusing to believe in it, ergo the undead can walk the earth.

The echoy sparseness of the “surf”-derived melodic lines, the taunt rhythms of the self same source demand motion, a restless energy to ride the wave, the eternal everlasting, being and becoming of the endless sea. Like watching a fire, it mesmerizes and entrances you. There is nothing else you can “do” with it: Gein and the Graverobbers‘s imagery and tones make these miniature skeletonal symphonies to the devil. Bits and pieces of marches and elegies glide through the compositions. Take the song “Brackish Ghoul”: It’s the emotional response you get from Metallica’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls” without any cheap lifting, purely within their own style, allied to the same roots. Different branch, same tree.

Overall, I dig this thing. These guys have put some real effort into the music, ’cause with something this specific, if it’s not going right, you know right off, and it’s not going at all.
(www.necrotonerecords.com)