Grinning Death’s Head…BLACK SUN RISING Review

Grinning Death’s Head’s first full length No Afterlife was a monstrous debut record. Invoking comparisons to American blackened punk legends Bone Awl, Grinning Death’s Head were considered by many to be the carriers of the flame for American black metal. Though it’s been quite a time off since we’ve heard any material, two years later we see the release of both a re-recorded version of No Afterlife, and a new demo, Black Sun Rising. Gone is the reverb drenched sound of No Afterlife, instead GDH have gone down the road of brutal minimalism; guitars shrieking like buzzsaws, buried vocals muffled under the gritty production. GDH have, through scaling back their sound, produced something utterly brutal, a true representation of the death obsessed lyricism and artwork that accompanies this cassette. At seven tracks, Black Sun Rising is just enough to keep the faith alive while we wait for a full length.

Opener “Holy Land” starts off with a raw drum beat that takes no time collapsing into shrieking guitars and destroyed vocals. Right from the start you realize there is a powerful hardcore punk energy running through this, with the uptempo drumming playing off the simple guitar riff perfectly, “Holy Land” is an unrelentingly violent assault of a song. “Shadow of Death” is more riff based, bringing to bear images of early Darkthrone. With some tempo changes, this track never strays too far from it’s opening riff.  It’s hypnotic death worship distilled down to guitar, drum, and vocal. With the guitar tone washed bare of any heavy distortion or reverb, it combines a black metal tone with a punk simplicity that has become GDH’s hallmark sound. “Lamb’s Blood” wildly swings from from up-tempo stomping punk march to a sludgy, bass heavy riff then back again, “Martyrdom” continues this theme with an absolutely filthy bass line plugging away beneath a jackhammer riff, howled vocals ripping across the low end like a voice from beneath the earth. Last track,the aptly titled “Last Words” chugs along like a funeral march, before vocals, guitar and crashing symbols all crash together, then clatter apart, reforming and unforming in an entropic whirl that heralds the end of this cassette.

Black Sun Rising isn’t going to change the face of metal, nor is it the dawning of a new subgenre of a subgenre. This is raw, blackened, American punk stripped down to it’s constituent pieces and performed with a minimalism so basic, it almost doesn’t seem like it would work. But through the droning guitar, the hypnotic drumming, and the vocals like a distant shriek, a dark vision forms, one that links the the death obsessed vision of GDH to the world of black metal at large. Like any Youth Attack release, Black Sun Rising is a product of a true respect for the underground community. Printed on black protapes, and packaged in a matchbox style sliding case printed with grotesque imagery of the dead and rotted, Black Sun Rising is a must own for any fan of the American black metal underground. Currently sold out from Youth Attack, wait for this to appears on distro’s soon.