GRAVE WITH A VIEW – Raw Illumination

RELEASE YEAR: 2024

BAND URL: https://gravewithaview.bandcamp.com/

Admittedly, I review so few black metal albums that one may think I’m not a fan of the genre because it has the highest percentage of Satanic bands. However, that is not exactly so. For one thing, black metal is the closest metal genre to classical music, for another, it is the lyrics that drive the spirituality first, and the music follows accordingly. I am, then, a fan of black metal but choose only those records that lyrically aren’t Satanic (especially those who will have my kind torn by wild animals or worse or my Lord and Savior recrucified if it were possible), and, if they also offer a compelling philosophical view at that – that’s always a bonus and increases the likelihood of my picking the record for a review since I find the traditional Christianity (with its mathematically absurd Dogma such as 3=1 Trinity, 100%+100%=100% Jesus Christ as both man and God, God ruling and controlling the Earth along with its many horrifying and heartless theodicies, dead not really being dead but alive in heaven or hell etc.) to be so clearly unbiblical man-made and, again, absurd, it practically asks to be mocked and ridiculed. If the truth cannot defend itself with logic it’s a lie in disguise. In fact, I think most of antireligious fervor in heavy metal is born from absurd religious doctrines peddled as truth. Antireligious in my view is not always antichristian and many antireligious stands are actually righteous stands. After all, my Lord Jesus Christ Himself opposed the religious leaders of his day exposing their hypocrisy and them as wolves in sheep’s clothing and I can and should do no less.

Having said that, in my selection of black metal albums for review, I follow the same rules as with any other genre: if I’m not privy to the lyrics (including past work) and only vague inferences can be made from recording or song titles, I give a band a benefit of a doubt, especially if the quality of the music is so great it deserves to be recognized. Such is the case with the Finnish duo mysteriously named Grave With A View (GWAV) whose 2nd full length, the phenomenal Raw Illumination²⁰²⁴, released last November 29th via Dusktone, I find as good as the best of Emperor (1994 – 1997) and Dimmu Borgir (1997 – 1999) (I know, both as Satanic as it gets) without the retroactive dust or tiring derivativity that so often plagues bands inspired by that golden era of black metal, the 90s. The sense of what black metal ought to be: loud (instead of a sound of a bee’s flatus in a Coke can), fantastically produced, dark, fast yet varied and instantly memorable but revealing itself only after multiple spins, pervades every second of this 38:35 minute, 8 track affair, with not a hint of filler to be found for one of the best genre sequels since Emperor’s Anthems To The Welkin At Dusk¹⁹⁹⁷.

While Raw Illumination is their 2nd album, it is not their 2nd recording which partially explains the supreme quality of thereof, the other reason being the musical pedigree of the founders. Originally, GWAV was a quintet of Juuso Onerva (bass-2022), Oskari Hakala-Rahko (guitars), Antti Nissilä (vocals-2022), former Omnium Gatherum vocalist and guitarist Olli-Pekka Lappalainen (lead guitars-2019), and former Omnium Gatherum drummer Ville “Salonem” Ristolainen (drums-2019) reduced to Onerva, Hakala-Rahko and Nissilä for the independent debut Godless And Wild²⁰²⁰, followed by Fangs & Flesh²⁰²⁰ EP and then Grave With A View²⁰²² EP, the band eventually becoming a duo of Onerva and Hakala-Rahko (it remains to date), and, finally Wounds²⁰²³ EP, Onerva having joined heavy stoner death metallers, Black Royal as a bassist. Before releasing the first single “Cold Flesh Peregrination” (2024) Onerva took over the vocals and guitars (so likely still also playing the bass) and Hakala-Rahko handled the guitars as well as all programming (possibly drums), so, following the release of the second single, “The Lash”, the 2nd full length was served on the semi-suspecting populace.

What makes this record so great is how you start out your exposure with a conviction it is a very simple and unvaried affair and then, with each subsequent contact, you begin to discover how deep the rabbit hole is (incidentally, I listened to it while watching “Matrix 3” without sound and loved the experience). The performances are phenomenal and the album sounds like a normal 4 to 5 member band, especially drums, so it’s shocking there are only two dudes here. Furthermore, these guys simply know and perform black metal as if Ihsahn, Samoth (Emperor), Shagrath and Silenoz (Dimmu Borgir) were their brothers with whom they had practiced since they were 13 until they split into their respective bands.

Even from the opener, “Cold Flesh Peregrination”, you can hear GWAV mean business, the deafening fast blastbeaten black metal riffs designed to weed out the weak or possibly fake black metal fans, but wait, because the track wonderfully morphs into that kind of midpaced rhythm known from more melodic Hypocrisy songs, with rich symphonic background all of which recalls genre staples such as the aforementioned Anthems To The Welkin At Dusk¹⁹⁹⁷ or Dimmu Borgir’s (wildly antichristian) Enthrone Darkness Triumphant¹⁹⁹⁷ reminding me I wasn’t always a Christian although having been (forcefully) raised a Roman Catholic. The following “Lash” is both just like, and different from, the predecessor, but even more symphonic, even more Anthems, the two absolute genre perfections inspiring an almost irresistible urge to find on you tube and fire up Emperor’s 2nd seminal album. It makes total sense that GWAV chose those two singles and the two of my favorites, to promote the album, but “Wrest” is just as perfect, interestingly evocative of Swallow The Sun just because the death doomers are black metal on “These Woods Breathe Evil”. And, just when you thought about something a little different – voila, the comparatively minimalistic title track rolling in slowly, a simple two riff affair but that climate is making up for it just right, besides, “To The Beat Of Broken Bones” is another mesmerizing phenomenon, first teasing you with seeming lo fi start then pulverizing you with both power and finesse recalling Dissection (hard core Satanists) for melody and for beauty, not perfect but close and so is “Loathe” of equal quality while paying homage to Morbid Angel (self explanatory) with those razor sharp technical riffage, but, overall, the song is slower and much more nuanced, with more are, and that bone-chilling, per their bandcamp description, anti-life black metal misery between the cascading riffs. The last perfection, “Tail Swallower”, has an almost danceable quality to it, for some reason, reminding me of Katatonia despite being unmistakably black metal, while slower dissonance recalls Ulcerate, which convinces me of a significant death metal influence on Raw Illumination, and, finally, the closer, “These Meaningless Gestures”, brings back that minimalistic air from the middle of the record, and again, Hypocrisy from its more epic doomy passages, and it is that song that showcases some fantastic drum rolls as if it were performed by a man instead of a programmed machine.

The great late Chuck Schuldiner (Death), that father of death metal who had started out crude and profane but evolved into a philosophical poet of Nietzschean and lightly Christian proportions, once sang “without judgment perception would increase a million times”, the words which accompany me often even as they echo my Master’s command, “Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment” (John 7:24, NASB1995). As concerning my personal prejudice revealed in the opening paragraph, may those words serve as our motto here and in life.