Do you ever have one of those days where absolutely fucking everything goes wrong?
You know the type. You roll out of bed, crack your knee on the frame, stagger to the fridge only to discover the milk’s turned to cheese, then end up in a screaming match with your ex before you’ve even had a coffee. You finally get the kids off to school, thinking the nightmare’s over, only for some brain-dead arsehole to blast through a red light and nearly flatten you as you cross the road. By that point, the universe isn’t just taking the piss — it’s pissing directly on you.
Well, when days like that happen — and believe me, they do — I’ve found the cure. It’s called This Side of the Grave, and it’s a fifteen-minute slab of Spanish death metal so feral, so blistering, so fucking vicious, it makes you forget about all the daily bullshit and just slam into the nearest wall until your bones rattle. Undead have nailed the art of the EP here.
No filler, no fluff, no pointless intros or interludes that waste your time. Just a relentless barrage of riffs, growls, and drums that sound like they’re trying to beat their way through the earth’s crust. You don’t listen to this thing, you let it fucking engulf you. And that’s exactly what makes it so goddamn satisfying.
The production is spot on for this kind of carnage. It’s raw enough to keep the edges jagged and nasty, but clear enough that every chainsaw riff slices through and every double-kick lands like a punch to the chest. The guitar tone is filth incarnate, somewhere between early Entombed and a buzzsaw being fed through a cement mixer. The bass rumbles like an earthquake under your feet. And the vocals? Jesus Christ. They’re less “singing” and more “summoning demons from a pit,” the kind of guttural bellows that make your neighbours wonder if you’re trying to sacrifice the dog.
What I love about This Side of the Grave is that it doesn’t pretend to be anything other than what it is. It’s death metal distilled to its purest form — violent, unrelenting, and fucking fun. You don’t need to overthink it, you don’t need to analyse the time signatures or the lyrical metaphors. You just hit play, and for fifteen glorious minutes, the world disappears under a tidal wave of riffs and rage.
And honestly, that’s why this EP feels like such a gift. Because let’s face it — most of us carry around a lot of pent-up shit. Work stress, family drama, the general misery of existing in a world that seems determined to kick you in the bollocks daily. Music like this doesn’t just entertain, it heals. Not in some hippy-dippy, light-a-candle-and-meditate way, but in the way that smashing your head into a speaker stack and roaring along with a blastbeat heals. You come out the other side bruised, sweaty, and grinning like a maniac.
This is meat-and-potatoes death metal, cooked up exactly the way you want it: bloody, raw, and served with a rusty knife. And if that doesn’t put a smile on your face after a shit day, I don’t know what will.
So yeah — next time the world decides to kick you in the teeth before breakfast, don’t get mad. Get Undead. Throw This Side of the Grave on, turn it up until your walls shake, and let the rage wash out of you in fifteen minutes of glorious, face-melting chaos.
This Side of the Grave is out now via Edged Circle Productions.
CHOICE CUT: Samsara
RATING: 3.5 OUT OF 5
RATING SYSTEM:
- 0: Fucking Shit
- 1: Shit
- 2: Not Bad Shit
- 3: Pretty Good Shit
- 4: Amazing Fucking Shit
- 5: The Best Shit You Will Ever Hear
PRESS SOURCE: Cátia C./Against PR.
