One With the Dead

Following a flurry of buzz from its 2007 EP Into the Mausoleum, the Barcelona death metal quintet Graveyard’s first proper full-length album came out in 2009. One with the Dead boasts improved fidelity and production, because Graveyard's preceding recordings were intended to simply be circulated as demos before a snowballing popularity demanded their release. Following the intro, “Prologue: The Reaping” (replete with a satanic priest chanting over a spooky ambience), “Pantheon Vulture” tears from your speakers with tightly wound guitar riffs that race drum blasts toward the heavens. Julkarn’s brooding bass and throat-shredding howls recall early-'90s Swedish death metal. The relentless attack in both “The Burning Gate” and “Riding a Pale Horse” evoke black metal’s heyday, when bands like Entombed, Dismember, and Nihilist provided a soundtrack to inter-scene violence and the criminal arson of Norwegian churches. The latter topic is touched on in the irreverent “Abandoned Churches,” where both guitarists battle it out over an ear-pummeling rhythm section.