Artist: Gravehome
Country: Turkey
Label: Extreminal Productions
Formats: Demo Tape
Year: 2004
I already begun several review of Turkish products with a story about the ever expanding scene over there. And, yet, I still think it is growing, though I won’t repeat an alike story with this first demo tape of the Turkish raw black metal band Gravehome. Instead a more traditional introduction is on its place as well. The band has been founded by singer and bassist Damnare (who is a/the drummer too?) who was formerly a member of the Turkish black metal band Mictian, though he strived for a rawer approach of the genre and began something more true to himself, which resulted in Gravehome. But the information about this band is still really unclear and unsure, the line-up changes almost daily and so did the title of the demo, but so it seems, it was finally baptised as “Kaotic Visions”.
I first of all have to admit that this better than I thought it would be. The music is best be described as being very raw and cold Burzum-ish black metal. It is clear that they pretty much tried to come as close to Burzum as possible. It even includes the repetitive riffs which have some kind of a hypnotising effect. The music is pretty authentic, yet, with one difference: the vocals. That is the weakest spot of the band, or at least on this demo (at least, on the moment of the recording of this demo, I have no clue what happened afterwards). I think they wanted to create a Vikerness-alike howling kind of voice, but to be honest I don’t think that it didn’t work out that well. Let’s say, like Vikerness did on his self-titled debut album in a track like “War” for instance – but Damnare is not (yet) able to reach that level. But all in all I think this is a great first attempt/effort and it is recommended for fans of bands like Burzum (d’oh!), Forgotten Tomb and a band like Weltmacht for instance. Nice and simple, but oh so effective, black metal. Exactly the way I like it best, the raw and cold/melancholic way without too many blast beats…
