Album Review: Grand Cadaver – Deities Of Deathlike Sleep (Majestic Mountain Records)

Grand Cadaver, the extreme metal supergroup that features a who’s who of the Gothenburg and Stockholm scene, return with their sophomore album, Deities Of Deathlike Sleep. Out on August 25th, 2023, via Majestic Mountain Records.

There aren’t many positives to point at from the COVID times, but one small thing we can look at is how it gave artists and bands an opportunity to experiment with what they were doing. A forced opportunity, but one none the less. It’s how we ended up with Mikael Stanne from Dark Tranquillity and The Halo Effect, Stefan Lagergren from The Grifted, formerly of Treblinka/Tiamat and Expulsion, Alex Stjernfeldt from Novarupta, Child and formerly of Mr. Death, Christian Jansson of Pagandom and Dark Tranquillity and Daniel Liljekvist of Disrupted, Vorder, and formerly of Katatonia, making music together under the name of Grand Cadaver.

It should have been a one-time thing, but here we are, the second Grand Cadaver album and another slice of exciting Swedish death metal. One that has some influence from the melo-death scene, while being mainly focused on the extremer side of things.

It kicks all kinds of ass, because of course it does. Look at the names involved in this band. They couldn’t put something bad out if they tried. See Grand Cadaver as an accompaniment to their other work, and certainly not a replacement. This is a sound of talented artists having fun, jamming together, and finding that they have some pretty killer music.

Deities Of Deathlike Sleep is not a massive step-forward from Into The Maw of Death, but it is as classy. Grand Cadaver continue what they did with their debut, dropping a slab of death metal that is predominantly focused on battering the listener over the head. Ten massive, substantial, and grim sounding examples of heavy music.

Speed and intensity is the name of the game here, and Grand Cadaver want the listener to feel as though they’re being pummelled. With a stunning array of scathing riffs, pounding drumbeats, painful hooks, garish vocals, and more, few will come away feeling anything but having survived an unrelenting beating.

Who wouldn’t want to experience such a thing? With quality death metal coming out of Grand Cadaver as this, let’s hope they continue to make music for a long time going forward.

Grand Cadaver – Deities Of Deathlike Sleep Track Listing:

1. The Forever Doom
2. A Crawling Feast of Decay
3. The Wishful Dead
4. Serrated Jaws
5. Deities Of Deathlike Sleep
6. Vortex Of Blood
7. Funeral Reversal
8. True Necrogeny
9. Stabbed With Frozen Blood
10. Necrosanctum

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