Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Grave Digger
Label: Napalm Records
Release: 2014
Runtime: 43:32
Rating: 4.5/5
If reviving the saga of clans and eternal Scottish stubbornness didn’t work out four years ago, the long-lived German power metal veterans Grave DIgger are pulling it off with the return of the reaper. If reading reviews wears you out, it’s worth saying right away that Grave Digger’s new album »Return of the Reaper« – or, put plainly, part two of their cult classic album »The Reaper« from 1993 – is in every respect hugely credible, and therefore its true, rightful successor.
Grave Digger closed ranks after the truly »holey« »The Clans Will Raise Again« (2010), and it became clear that new guitarist Axel Ritt had finally cashed in his talents for upholding the signature traits of Grave Digger’s sound, which the previous, more than solid studio album »Clash of the Gods« (2012) confirmed. But what »Return of the Ripper« delivers now is exactly what’s demanded of Grave Digger and what was expected through the second half of the nineties, when with every new album they leveled up their instantly recognizable brand of Teutonic power metal and delighted us with superb records, from »The Reaper« all the way to around 2001, when »The Grave Digger« came out – which we can call a credible flirt with the band’s golden era of creativity!
»Return of the Reaper« doesn’t just effectively revive the memory of the band’s cult classic from 1993, it also offers a glimpse of the current state of old-school metal maturity in the best way possible. The new album confirms a fresh burst of ideas in its vividly woven guitar phrases, beneath which the relentless machinery of deadly pecking from drummer Stefan Arnold’s double bass pedals churns away, more ravenous and real than it has been in ages. Grave Digger fire from every available position, as if the band’s boss, the pleasantly graying wolverine Chris Boltendahl, were a dewy 19 years old and full of burning desire to prove himself. The naivety of teenage innocence is (thankfully) far, far behind him. One of the most recognizable »growly« voices in classic heavy metal, a standout of the famed Teutonic treasury of German power metal testimony, keeps his vocal cords firmly oiled even in his later years, and howls with the force of a lit chainsaw lodged in his throat!
»Return of the Reaper« is sharp as the sharpest razor, which matters a great deal when weighing the authenticity of this resurrection of the chemical bonds of the deadly serrated metal machinery of the classic »The Reaper«. Over the years, of course, Grave Digger have kept all their sense for a blend of musicality and the implantation of their already proverbial power metal pomp (on the new album this is rounded off most beautifully by the closing power metal ballad mini-suite Nothing to Believe), while at the same time smashing through with an unbridled passion that was last so truly palpable on the album »The Grave Digger« (2001). Stefan Arnold once again drew the short straw, keeping his role as the band’s biggest workhorse on the new album too! He pretty much never gets off the double bass pedals the whole way through (try him on Satan’s Host, for instance)! So the albums get rolled out in top gear (and performance). Let’s hope Bolthendahl goes easy on Arnold on tour, since the man is no longer a tender 18, which means that in his later years it’s not hard to wreck a meniscus with too many gymnastic acrobatics. Behind the kit Arnold remains a raging beast and, alongside Boltendahl’s unmistakable possessed growl and Axel Ritt’s Teutonic sweeps of guitar phrases, one of the most famous trademarks of the Grave Digger recipe. There are few moments on the record where a track doesn’t demand an assault on the double pedal, like the mid-tempo, atmospherically doomy metal march of Dia De Los Muertos, where the man wisely fills the available space with a bit of retro sonic makeup, namely a »cowbell«. The excellent Tatooed Rider unfolds in a similar way, opening (fleetingly) much like the intro of the Judas Priest classic Turbo Lover. And in the embrace of sweet doom you’ll surely bathe carefree in yet another fiercely gloomy, mood-wise utterly sinister track, Season of the Witch.
Grave Digger have known full well for a long time that they’re better off restoring some old guitar riff from their treasure chest than trying anything new, since that would lead to their artistic lynching. So a nice bundle of reused guitar phrases in the arrangements works wonderfully, evoking both the band’s cult records and the sheer currency of their sonic rhetoric. Death has always been Botlendahl’s favorite subject, and so it must be on the new album too. Occultism, the call of mysticism, blackness, post-apocalyptic vistas, conspiracies and the ultimate doom of the central hero of his stories! It all gets his preacher’s »treatment« on the new album as well.
»Return of the Reaper« is, then, an excellent new studio album from Grave Digger, one that credibly maintains an authentic bond with the unforgettable album »The Reaper« (1993) while thrilling with its remarkable fresh ideas and an extreme charge that leaves no survivors. That’s highly promising for a band that has, career-wise, pretty much said the essential things in its file and doesn’t have much new to add. That’s why expectations for new releases haven’t been set high for quite a while. But the sweetest surprise is precisely the positive one. »Return of the Reaper« is an album made with exceptional commitment, it justifies its title in every way, and it finally proves that Axel Ritt has caught the right connection with a band that has caught the most favorable wind in its ancient sails of the ultimate testimony of the bible of German power metal. In Grave Digger’s hands it hasn’t come across so vividly, authentically and compactly in many long years as it does on this new studio album!
Line-up
Chris Boltendahl – vocals, backing vocals
Axel Ritt – guitar, backing vocals
H.P. Katzenburg – keyboards
Jens Becker – bass guitar
Stefan Arnold – drums
Production
Chris Boltendahl & Grave Digger
Track list
01. Return Of The Reaper
02. Hell Funeral
03. War God
04. Tattooed Rider
05. Resurrection Day
06. Season Of The Witch
07. Road Rage Killer
08. Dia De Los Muertos
09. Satan’s Host
10. Grave Desecrator
11. Death Smiles At All Of Us
12. Nothing To Believe
