To The Grave – Director’s Cuts
Release Date: 24th February 2023
Label: Unique Leader Records
Bandcamp
Genre: Deathcore, Death Metal.
FFO: Signs of The Swarm, Brand of Sacrifice, Humanity’s Last Breath.
Review By: Andy Spoon
Australia’s To The Grave return with a new line-up for 2023’s LP, Director’s Cuts, an album full of thematic anthems against the destruction of earth’s resources and protesting inhumane animal treatment. Described as their heaviest album to date, To The Grave is optimistic about the absolutely crushing nature of the album, and for good reason. The vocal delivery and arrangement elements are the tippy-top of the game right now. Deathcore fans will absolutely appreciate this offering for its content as well as the production quality as the band’s absolute best work to date.
Director’s Cuts is a vocalist ‘fans’ delight, with a vast array of vocal swagger from vocalist Dane Evans. I consider the likeness to the vocal array of bands like Brand of Sacrifice or Shadow of Intent, two associated acts whose similarity is absolutely coveted. Frankly, it’s the highlight of the album for me. If you are blown away by the superb blend of vocal techniques in Brand of Sacrifice, you’ll be thrilled with To The Grave’s vocal section. I’m not terribly familiar with the most popular extreme metal vocal techniques, but I feel like Evans’ range is one of the best in the game right now, and absolutely cannot be overlooked.
The guitars feature lots of chops and screeches, often called panic chords to create a rhythmic element to the guitar section, which becomes especially-powerful on some of the nasty breakdowns that deathcore fans want. Obviously, some folks will think about Knocked Loose, a progenitor of the technique in the subgenre. However, one might want to add some of the “djenty”, Mick Gordon-style seven and eight-string guitar chugs to the description of To The Grave’s guitar tone. The absolute best guitar breakdown comes in on Manhunt, where listeners are treated to an absolutely-grinding pair of breakdowns that absolutely made me mentally think of the Doom Soundtrack.
One of the band’s most embraced issues is the nature of animal rights and conservation, something which could be likened to acts like Cattle Decapitation and Gojira. The use of horror imagery to accurately describe (in horror format) some aspects of the human-animal relationship here on our island, earth is a previously-explored topic and media, but it’s one of the most effective since the horror genre of music is expected to have a certain “edge” in its delivery. I think that the ability of bands to juxtapose human horror elements with the plight of animals is unique to extreme metal, something I don’t mind, as it seems to be markedly easier to digest from a mental viewpoint (as opposed to, perhaps, watching a video like Blackfish).
Early in 2022, we were treated to a Deathcore buffet with four or 5 releases at once by Shadow of Intent, Worm Shepherd, and Enterprise Earth. I think that To The Grave’s 2023 release ought to be considered part of the same effect, as this is one of the deathcore albums that’s going to be setting a high benchmark for the subgenre in 2023. I absolutely think that this is one of the heaviest deathcore albums in recent memory, something that puts To The Grave at a high place in my early-2023 heaviness “ranking”, as corny as that sounds. Overall, I think this is going to be the standard for deathcore albums this year thus far. While it’s only February, I think that this is going to be the album that every other act should chase this year. It might be the 2023 equivalent of Worm Shepherd’s Ritual Hymns, which is something that I hope To The Grave could hang their hats on. Well done, gentlemen.
(4.5 / 5)
