Album Review: Grave Lines - Communion
Reviewed by Paul Hutchings
My first encounters with the London outfit Grave Lines came in 2018 when the band were main support to Black Moth at a show in Cardiff’s Fuel Rock Club. It was like being flattened by a wall of heaviness that spared no quarter. Following on from that, the band’s second album, ‘Fed into the Nihilist Engine’ maintained the aural assault. It was equal parts Nick Cave, Neurosis and Nine Inch Nails with the gothic overtones adding an additional edge. The riffs were huge, heavy, and bruising.
Four years on and the band are back, with album number three ‘Communion’ maintaining the band’s exploration of the ugliness of the human condition. It’s an album that, much like both predecessors, doesn’t sit neatly into any particular pigeonhole. Jake Harding’s vocals are as harsh as ever, the bile that he produces enough to spread discomfort regardless of how you are feeling. Opening track ‘Gordian’ is melancholic, misanthropic, and full of sludgy riffs and echoing guitar. It strikes hard and deep.
The purveyors of heavy gloom are certainly on form, such is the atmosphere of darkness and despair that they cast. It’s harrowing, malevolent and disturbingly deceptive. ‘Argyraphaga’ is full of violent overtones, the jagged pace and angular guitar riffs combined with Harding’s harrowing vocals and the jerking, unorthodox rhythms battered by bassist Stgrn’ Matt and drummer Sam Chase. It’s a relentless opening which leads neatly into the 11-minute sprawl that is 'Lyceanid,’ which features a performance from Harding that conjurers up images like Mark Lanegan, Vincent Cavanagh, and Scott Walker. It’s a change of tact and style which Harding can do so well. There are semi-gothic elements that haunt the track, the gloom spreads and disperses just as rapidly.
‘Tachinid’ brings a different approach, a hostile verbal sermon, complete with abrasive synths that one might compare to an angry Hawkwind. It’s volatile, short, and sharp. Grave Lines switch to more melodic flavours on ‘Carcini,’ the gothic tones of Bauhaus and the industrial tinge of Killing Joke jostle for space with other more obvious influences such as Sabbath. By now the album will have either drawn you totally in or you’ll be reaching for the off switch. For ‘Communion’ isn’t an album that you’ll be able to pick up on a whim. This is serious stuff. Two tracks to conclude see the fuzzed up riffage on ‘Broodsac’ strangely compelling and most definitely one to soak up, whilst concluding song ‘Sinensis’ begins with Harding’s solo vocal soaked in emotion, accompanied by an acoustic guitar before its final descent into a crushing explosion of harsh, industrial down tuned instruments that bring this release to a dramatic conclusion.
‘Communion’ picks up exactly where their previous release ended. It’s an album that demands attention to detail, exploration and repeated plays. Take the deep dive and draw the rewards from one of the UK’s most intense and evocative outfits.
