EARLY GRAVE - Tomorrow I Am You

11 songs
47:01 minutes
***** **
Rising / SPV

Bandpage

Early Grave are a truly young band from England. The members are all between sixteen and twenty years. That’s why we shouldn’t expect too much from their debut Tomorrow I Am You, although there is definite potential hidden here.

They label their music deathcore, which doesn’t do their much broader sound justice. The guys like it raw and coarse, and combine different hard genres. Death metal and hardcore elements are prominent, but when Early Grave rely on old school thrash parts, they sound best, as on Golden Hearts or the great Dead To Me for which they made a video clip. Even though they feel at ease in their vehement sound, they pay attention to add melodic choruses (As Thick As Thieves, To The Grave), bringing them into the vicinity of modern metal bands. Sometimes this works, but can also fail as on the extremely cheesy Like A Widow At The Wake. The quiet This Day She Reigns gets out of line and is only disturbed by a few occasional screams.

It is obvious that Early Grave haven’t yet found their own style and are still experimenting with different influences. At this early stage of their still young career, that’s also the best approach. The CD develops a certain charm due to its naivety, but the question remains if it has been released too early, as there are a few points of criticism: the black metal sounding vocals lack variety, a few tracks just don’t sound mature and the production lacks dynamics.

I doubt that Early Grave suffer from a lack of ideas. But they need to collect and work on them. Once this maturity process has been done, we can expect certainly much more of this band.