Album Review: Grave Digger – Healed By Metal (Napalm Records)

Listening to Grave Digger’s Healed By Metal, the first Grave Digger album I’ve ever listened too I could have sworn I’ve been listening to them all my life. Its fist in the air, power metal mixed with that old school metal sound has been around for a long time to often mixed results.

Healed By Metal is not a bad album, far from it but it’s just all a bit too familiar.

From opening song, Healed By Metal’s bombastic, sing along style to the ‘raise your fist in the air’ Ten Commandments of Metal, Grave Digger have brought the metal riffs by the bucketload. A lot of these songs would fit perfectly alongside Sabaton, Dream Evil & Helloween on a rock club’s Friday night playlist. What it lacks in originality, it more then makes up for with the catchy, fun tunes.

Songs like When the Night Falls, Free Forever & Call For War will get stuck in your head. Heavy, fast-tempo metal songs that follow a straight-forward, well-worn path & rarely deviates from it.

At times Grave Digger skirt a little too close to the sound & style of other, larger classic metal bands. For example, Lawbreaker is scarily similar to Judas Priest’s Breaking the Law. It’s a low point of an album that hardly puts a foot wrong when it comes to classic-sounding heavy metal.

By the time it gets to The Hangman’s Eye though it begins to wear a little thin. The obligatory guitar solos are sounding more tired & the songs are beginning to blend into each other. Kill Ritual has moments that snap the album out of the stupor it’s beginning to slip into while Hallelujah promises much but ultimately fails to deliver thanks to a cringeworthy chorus.

Healed By Metal ends on the slower & darker song, Laughing With the Dead. It’s a strong finish with a real earworm of a beat. It’s only really let down by a ‘laugh’ part of the chorus which is done at the same pace as the rest of the song. It’s pretty terrible.

There’s much to enjoy here & for at least half the album you’ll have a blast. It’s over-familiarity & lack of real inspirational tunes is what lets it down overall.

Full Track Listing:

1. Healed By Metal
2. When the Night Falls
3. Lawbreaker
4. Free Forever
5. Call For War
6. Ten Commandments of Metal
7. The Hangman’s Eye
8. Kill Ritual
9. Hallelujah
10. Laughing With The Dead

Healed by Metal is out now & available to buy or stream on Spotify & Apple Music as well as from the Napalm Records store here.