AN NCS PREMIERE: GRAVERIPPER — “RESIST AGAINST THE LIGHT”

At the end of every year for the last 13 years our site has rolled out a list of each year’s “Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs“. Barring some unforeseen calamity we will do it again at the end of 2023. We don’t start seriously thinking about which songs should make the list until the waning days of each year, but sometimes some of the choices become immediately obvious, and this is one of those times. There absolutely WILL be a song from GraveRipper on the 2023 edition of the list. The only thing up in the air is, which song?

The choice won’t be easy, because GraveRipper‘s forthcoming debut album Seasons Dreaming Death (set for release later this month by Wise Blood Records) is packed to the brim with highly infectious black-thrashing romps, the kind of exultant escapades that are loaded with hooks, bury them deep in a listener’s brain, and get hearts pounding and heads banging.

No, it won’t be an easy choice, but the song from the album we’re premiering today — “Resist Against the Light” — will certainly be a leading contender.

photo by Lindley King

We’ve been closely following the progress of this Indiana band with fiendish glee ever since we premiered their EP Radiated Remains back in 2021 (which was the source of a song we put on that year’s “Most Infectious” list). As it happens, the song we’re presenting today has a connection to that EP. Vocalist and rhythm guitarist Corey Parks explains:

“‘Resist Against the Light‘ is a continuation of a theme we introduced on Radiated Remains. We had a song that was a sci-fi thrash influenced ripper, so we expanded its concept. This one is a no-bullshit-ass-kicker, it’s a favorite in our camp. The original spoke of an army of machines powered by forgon occult magic unleashing nuclear war on man. This song tells the story from the other perspective, the small remaining humans waging war against the machines. Yeah, I am a huge Terminator fan.”

Now that you’ve got Terminator in your head, it will be hard to forget the imagery when you hear the song. It will also be hard to get any deep breaths until it’s over.

“No-bullshit-ass-kicker” is dead on. This is the kind of song guaranteed to ignite a riot in the mosh pit when it’s played live. It’s probably foolish as well as unnecessary to dissect music like this, which is so turbocharged and so visceral that all you really want to do is put your higher reasoning faculties on a shelf, hang on, and enjoy the thrills while they last. But fools that we are, we’ll do some dissecting anyway.

The opening of “Resist Against the Light” is part of the reason why the song is so damned infectious. Kicking into high gear immediately, it juxtaposes  bursts of braying and whining chords with rapidly swirling arpeggios that sound deliriously exultant.  When the rhythm section join in, spurring this devil-steed into a gallop, the effect is even more electrifying.

But the mood of the song subtly morphs. Those high-toned leads remain delirious, but they start to sound demented too, and the seething tremolo’d riffing becomes grim and cruel — an effect underscored by the goblin-barks of the vocals. And there’s still more to come. About two minutes in, a feverish guitar bridge paves the way for a highly headbangable thrash riff accented by hyper-speed double-kick bursts and maniacal fills.

 

 

With respect to the album as a whole, Corey Parks has explained that the title “is my take on Halloween/Samhain, the day of the year where the veil between the world of the living and the world of the dead is the thinnest.” With respect to the music, he calls the songwriting “Refined Expansion”:

“Double down on what resonates with us, but also introduce some new arrangements, ideas, themes, and influences. With this being a full-length record there was a lot more room to do that. We introduced more Teutonic thrash worship that teeters on the line of death metal. We also took this as an opportunity to prove we can really play some straightforward malicious black metal riffing as well. All while keeping the overall sonic goal of sewing black and thrash together in our own unique ratio.”

 

GRAVERIPPER is:
Keegan Hrybyk – Lead Guitar
Corey Parks – Rhythm Guitar/Vocals
Chris Pilotte – Bass Guitar
Jacob Lett – Drums

Seasons Dreaming Death was engineered, mixed, and mastered by Wesley Heaton at Postal Recording (drums were engineered by Niko Albanese at Primary Sound Studios). The cover art is absolutely fantastic, and Adam Burke gets the credit for that.

Seasons Dreaming Death will be released by Wise Blood on August 25th, in the midst of the label’s “Summer Ov Thrash”, launching 5 high-speed albums in 4 months. They will release GraveRipper‘s full-length in a multitude of formats — variant 12″ vinyl LPs, jewel-case CD, cassette tape, and digital. You can check out all the options at the Wise Blood Bandcamp page for the record, and there you can also listen to two more previously released songs, the opener “Into the Grave” and the title track “Seasons Dreaming Death“.

We also want to report that in September GraveRipper will be embarking on the Summer Ov Thrash tour across six states with Bloodletter, and you can see the schedule via the flyer below.

PRE-ORDER:
https://graveripper.bandcamp.com/album/seasons-dreaming-death

FOLLOW GRAVERIPPER:
https://www.facebook.com/graveripperofficial