Grond - Howling from the Deep

GROND - Howling from the Deep (RAW SKULL Rekordz- CD 2017)

Russian Grond is not a new band for me. I already had their two releases in my collection: "Cosmic Devonian" and "Worship the Kraken" and with the recent reissue of "Howling from the Deep" through Raw Skull Rekordz I can finally add also Grond's debut album. First pressing of this album was released in 2013 by Assault Records, but there were only 333 copies made, so not so many. It's good then to have this new version in my hands. It came with different artwork, but damn – this new cover looks truly fuckin impressive and I have to say that I love it. Andrey Tkalenko, who plays bass in Grond, is the author of it and well, all I can say is that he's truly talented dude! 

"Howling from the Deep" takes us few years back, but this album still sounds not bad at all and is equally good as such "Cosmic Devonian". Grond plays quite groovy and heavy, mostly mid-paced death metal that can remind you the likes of Obituary, Six Feet Under, Benediction and so on... Their music is quite diverse, with some melodic bits here and there, but few fast parts have also been shredding my ears in couple of songs. But mostly it's mid to slow paced stuff. And as such this album is pretty easy to get into, the riffs and the whole music are pretty memorable, it's not a band, which would focus on brutality, it's rather aiming for heaviness, groove and atmosphere. They do it well, I like it. Grond comes up with some really cool riffs, for example in "Иннсмут (Innsmouth)" or in the title track. It's really fun to listen to this album, although I have to admit that to say it's the most impressive death metal of the year would be a lie. It's not. I actually think that Grond is pretty mediocre band and their music has some small boredom syndromes. After a while this album becomes slightly monotonous, which is a shame. But it not a major complain and I think it's decent and solid stuff overall. I listened to it several times, I am sure I will be back to this band more than once and I will definitely look for more recordings from them. 

And yes, they have lyrics that speak about the Lovecraftian horrors. Some of them have been written in Russian, which is quite odd – but you won't feel the difference, because the growls won't allow you understand the words anyway. This CD comes also with a bonus unreleased song, as well as demo versions of three album tracks.

Standout tracks: "Иннсмут (Innsmouth)", "Howling from the Deep", "Infected Gods" 

Final rate: 70/100