Battlegrave consists of Clint Patzel (bass/guitars) and Rohan Buntine (vocals) from Melbourne, Australia and ‘Enslavement’ is their third full-length album after ‘Relics Of A Dead Earth’ from 2018 and ‘Cavernous Depths’ from 2020.
The beginning is set by ‘Soul Chasm’ which offers aggressive drumming, heavy guitar riffing and the various vocals of Rohan Buntine, who can growl, scream and shout in a more Hardcore way. Besides the above mentioned two, this album also features guest musicians: Robin Stone (drums) and Daniel Mackie on lead guitar. ‘There Is Only Death’ is quite brutal track with lots of blastbeats and a good mid-tempo section. It reminds me to some extent of Lamb Of God and their mix of Groove, Thrash, Hardcore and Death Metal. ‘Bonesaw’ is a track that has a video on YouTube and it has a certain Cannibal Corpse vibe in the guitar riffs; it is quite fast and aggressive with some good leads from Daniel Mackie.
‘Marked By Evil’ starts with some pleasantly fat bass sound and it is an overall slow track with ominous atmosphere which in the end erupts into a grinding frenzy. The final track ‘US Outpost 31’ is probably the fastest grinding one in the album and offers the shrieking vocals of Ella Patzel, which I guess is related somehow to the guitar player Clint Patzel.
The production of ‘Enslavement’ is on a good level having in mind that the album is mastered by Logan Mader, who you should remember as a guitar player in Machine Head.
The problem in this album is that the songs do not really stand out from one another and it seems quite repetitive at times. But in case you are into aggressive and groove Thrash/Death Metal check this out.
