Graveyard: Lights Out

Beardy Swedes get diggin’.

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As much as we may crave music that resounds with the spirit and soul of the 70s’ finest, there is a fine line between plugging nostalgia into the mains and merely slapping people across the face with some soggy brown corduroy.

One of numerous Swedish bands to get the balance right in recent times, Graveyard have become a cause célèbre for those in thrall to that cherished pre-digital beards ‘n’ bellbottoms aesthetic, not least because they temper their obvious debt to the past with songwriting of the highest quality.

The follow-up to 2010’s widely lauded Hisingen Blues continues where its predecessor left off, with plenty of gently fuzzed-up riffing and dynamics torn straight from the Zep/Doors guide book.

Drifting languidly downstream on the deliciously hazy _Hard Time Lovin’ _or flooring the accelerator and rocking hard on Endless Night and Goliath, Graveyard belie their retro gait with a subtly psychedelic streak and a gift for invoking the murky blues of the Mississippi Delta that, against the odds, makes them sound curiously contemporary.

Dom Lawson
Writer

Dom Lawson has been writing for Metal Hammer and Prog for over 14 years and is extremely fond of heavy metal, progressive rock, coffee and snooker. He also contributes to The Guardian, Classic Rock, Bravewords and Blabbermouth and has previously written for Kerrang! magazine in the mid-2000s.