FEASTEM - Graveyard Earth [Lixiviat Records, 2020]

You might have seen this band in Lithuania a few times or even in the last edition of In Feast festival. Feastem is a not only a professional, self-disciplined band but also very nice people to hang out with, we went on tour with them few years ago and it has been an experience I will remember until I'm no longer on this graveyard earth so it was very exciting to finally get a copy of their new long awaited full lenght CD in black & white cover.

Graveyard earth throws you into a cold shower of blastbeats from the first moment, but very soon surprises you with some melodic riffs and classic Feastem almost-Black-metal-like sharp guitar sound that pierces your ears and drills your brain throughout the whole thing. As with every Feastem record this also sounds very clean, when you can hear every instrument, but it does not lose the brutality. Some call it "northern" sound, some call it a "good mix", I like to call this style "sterile". No judging, it's a question of taste, but some like it more... "dirty" you know ;)

Perfect, precise drumming of a handsome machine gun named Patrik does not stop and along with relentless hardcore vocals (singalongs included!) and catchy riffs paints a very nice picture all the way from the fists-in-the-air metal anthem Sortovalta to an uncannily prophetic In isolation we die to "I wonder what is this one about" Mouths of others and a harsh noise outro that ends right on time. Fast and beautiful.

We had a long drive with my wife yesterday and after convincing her to listen to some grindcore I played Graveyard Earth. So cool it's on Spotify, there is a serious lack of underground music there. So my wife said "If all your stupid bands were playing like that - I would consider going to Obscene Extreme with you" which I think is a perfect compliment.