Grand Cadaver – Deities of Deathlike Sleep
Release Date: 25th August 2023
Label: Majestic Mountain Records
Bandcamp
Genre: Swedish Death Metal
FFO: Bloodbath, Dark Tranquillity, At the Gates, Grave.
Review By: Eric Wilt
Michael Stanne has to be one of the busiest people in metal. As the vocalist of Dark Tranquillity, The Halo Effect, and Grand Cadaver, it’s hard to believe he finds time to sleep, but his legendary vocals are obviously in high demand, and on this, Grand Cadaver’s second full length, he is in as fine of form as ever. Joining Stanne on Deities of Deathlike Sleep are longtime friends, guitarists Stefan Lagergren and Alex Stjernfeldt, drummer Daniel Liljekvist, and bassist Christian Jansson. All of the members of Grand Cadaver have played in other Swedish death metal bands, so it is no surprise that Deities of Deathlike Sleep is an exemplary example of what the genre has to offer.
Grand Cadaver released their first full length, Into the Maw of Death, in 2021. That album was a high energy beatdown from start to finish. While Deities of Deathlike Sleep continues to blend Grand Cadaver’s love of bludgeoning death metal with the buzzsaw sound of the Boss HM 2 pedal, it also sees the band add new levels of dynamics to their sound. Songs like A Crawling Feast of Decay, the title song, and Stabbed with Frozen Blood stick to the Swedish death metal playbook that Grand Cadaver followed on their debut full length. Serrated Jaws, on the other hand, has more of a groove metal feel and even brings in the atmospherics of bands like Stanne’s main group Dark Tranquillity. Grand Cadaver even slows things down on songs like Funeral Reversal, True Necrogeny, and Necrosanctum, which see the band weave some doom metal into their signature sound.
When you buy a Swedish death metal album, you know for the most part what you’re getting. With Grand Cadaver, you know you’re getting top-tier musicianship, top-tier song writing, and one of the best vocalists in the game, and if they set the bar with Into the Maw of Death, they more than exceeded it on Deities of Deathlike Sleep.
(4.5 / 5)
