Liquid Graveyard | ‘Criministers’

There was once a band called Dominion, to whom noone paid even the slightest attention. Around about 1996 the Yorkshire band put out an album called ‘Interface’. It was somewhat unique for the UK at the time. Dark undergrooved death metal was led by the kind of powerful sung vocals, courtesy of one Michelle Richfield, that also made bands like Atrox so amazingly cool. Its was a pulsating and individual take on progressive death metal. They never really made an impact, but one hopes their spirit lives on in the annals of the genre, somewhere.

Perhaps though it is in here. Many Irish readers will remember bassist Aidrian Butler from his time in Mourning Beloveth. Many more will remember guitarist John Walker from none other than British stalwarts Cancer. The pair have hooked up to create Liquid Graveyeard, and in so doing, taken up the challenge of dark, individualistic death metal exactly where bands like Dominion and Atrox left off.

Everything about this demo is cool. Raquel’s vocals, though set deep (and sometimes too deep) within the mix, display at their best moments a venom that recalls Opera IX’s vocalatrix Cadaveria, with that delcious rasp. While she’s not hitting the multiple brilliances of Madder Mortem’s Agnete Kirkevaag just yet, one senses its a matter of time. The same can be said for the band. The rhythm section is huge, with a gutsy rumble preserved the whole way through.

More than anything, it is Liquid Graveyard’s riffing that really sets them apart. Sounding somewhat lateral and always strangely arrived at, they nonetheless lock down into straightforward rocking sections that flow superbly while retaining their thorough darkness. There’s nothing that can beat this. A band truly has it made when they manage to make arcane and uncomfortable notes actually course forward and rock - and one listen to ‘Antihead Grotesque’ will show you precisely how this is done.

This is an awesome demo, rough edges notwithstanding (the name for a start - stop sniggering at the back), but it has massive potential to the people out there that still crave their underground music to be just that. Dark, inventive, even a little magickal: the possibilities here are brilliant, and it will be tantalising to watch it develop.

- Ciaran Tracey ::: 29/10/08