Uerberos - Stand over Your Grave

UERBEROS - Stand over Your Grave (GODZ OV WAR Productions CD 2020)

I always have a troubled mind, when I have to write few words about such albums. On one hand they sound solid and there’s nothing really wrong with them, but then a problem comes if I just cannot say that I feel impressed or enthusiastic for the music. That is a case of "Stand over Your Grave" from Uerberos, I am afraid. It doesn't matter how fast and tight or brutal they sound... It doesn’t matter if everybody else will be super positive for this album. As for me, I will complete this review and the final spin and then I am sure that "Stand over Your Grave" will end up catching dust in my shelf for some years, before I grab it again wondering what the hell was it. 

OK, some of you may not like that modern death metal tag, which I will give to this album. But it is needed sometimes, especially as nowadays there's a clear, distinctive line between the bands, which sound like it was 1990 and those, which take this music on another level of technicality, brutality and intensity. Uerberos belongs to the latter group of bands. One such characteristic and important factor for them is the production, which also on "Stand over Your Grave" is very clean, almost sterile... It is powerful, everything clicks very precisely... But I just miss that harshness and mess of more natural old school sound. But that's me! Most of you will like how brutal and powerful Uerberos sounds here. I have no problem with it. 

And as for the music... Well, the easiest would be to say that Uerberos sounds like a combination of some other Polish bands, from Trauma, Hate, Vader, Lost Soul, up to Behemoth even. Of course there's more to it, you can bring comparisons to some American bands or whatever. It is brutal, fast as hell and very intense and vicious death metal. Every song has that merciless, punching sound and Uerberos hardly ever slows down. Of course, here and there you will find a slower part, even some more melodic patterns... I have to say that both guitarists do great job here and their riffs are juicy, with all those nice details and stuff like that. So, you shouldn't feel like every song sounds the same, for most of the time at least. The songwriting is good enough, I like that the songs can still sound fairly memorable, despite their brutality and that it isn’t a mindless ferocity or something like that. Uerberos seems to be doing everything right... 

But if you feel like I am quite harsh in this review and that there's hardly any word of real excitement, then you are right. As I mentioned earlier, "Stand over Your Grave" sounds like a solid and good album. But no more than that, in my opinion. As much as I try, it just isn't able to really catch my throat and crush it. I'm not even sure if I want it to. But I will give it a 70/100 score, as I feel that it deserves that, at least. 

Standout tracks: ahh, I don't know 

Verdict: 70/100