The good old filthy death metal worship is once again glorified by Spanish sordid death metallers GRAVEYARD, with their latest blitz The Altar Of Sculpted Skulls mini-CD. Three years after the debut full-length album "One With The Dead", the band gathered enough material for an EP; thus capturing the perfect essence of festering death metal on The Altar Of Sculpted Skulls.
Fronting the album cover features the breathtaking and intricate artwork by Matt 'Putrid' Carr (AUTOPSY, IMPETIGO, COFFINS, HOODED MENACE, etc). With four never-before-released tracks in tandem with two older remixed and re-mastered tracks, The Altar Of Sculpted Skulls is an ugly bloodbath of down-tuned buzzsaw guitars, Swe-beats and the undeniable bone-chilling hellish vibe that is reminiscent of the early incarnation of Swedish death metal insanity!
Review
Even on "An Epitaph Written in Blood" you can hear the ENTOMBED influence vividly, especially in the beginning before you're trampled under a huge annihilating riff made of all kinds of awesome. This is pretty much par for the course for all the material present here, extremely claustrophobic Death Metal littered with shredding solos, surging riffs weaved into passages of sheer pedal to the floor speed and slower ASPHYX-esque dirges. The intricacy of some of the drumming and guitar work is simply stunning, and the way the vocals are half submerged by the blizzard of everything else likewise. It doesn't stick around for too long but "The Altar of Sculpted Skulls" is exhaustingly good. Death Metal hasn't been in a form as good as this in many years... - Metal Observer 4/5
