Graveborne: Through The Window Of The Night

Finnish black metal beasts mix the rough with the... rough

You can trust Louder Our experienced team has worked for some of the biggest brands in music. From testing headphones to reviewing albums, our experts aim to create reviews you can trust. Find out more about how we review.

This is not your polite black metal: Graveborne like theirs grim and dirty. That’s not to say these Finnish fanatics’ second full-length is overly primitive or that, say, they lack ability – indeed, these monochrome-painted gents can play like demons.

Rather they eschew the delicate approach, preferring the full-throttle savagery and aggression of an armour-plated pitbull. They look a little like that, too, bristling with nails and bullet belts as you would expect. Ferocious they may be, yet the likes of Misericordia and Burn The City Of God blend the sandpaper blast of classic Norwegian 90s black metal (Mayhem and Gorgoroth perhaps) with the melodic feel of their countrymen Horna and Sargeist.

Through The Window takes a very orthodox, traditional line; you’ll have heard it before but they deliver convincingly. Root Of Evil will have your hands forming grim claws before you know what’s happening and Into The Abyss will make you wish you had a snow-covered forest to run around in at night.