{"id":104426,"date":"2025-01-17T00:00:35","date_gmt":"2025-01-17T00:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=104426"},"modified":"2025-01-24T13:49:43","modified_gmt":"2025-01-24T13:49:43","slug":"album-review-grave-digger-bone-collector","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-grave-digger-bone-collector\/","title":{"rendered":"GRAVE DIGGER – Bone Collector (2025) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

GRAVE DIGGER
Bone Collector<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nRPM-ROAR (2025)<\/span>
Rating: 8\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Forty-five years after forming, Teutonic titans Grave Digger unleash their 21st full-length studio album. Once again it\u2019s a solid reminder of how consistent this posse has been and so with more striking artwork in tow, Bone Collector<\/em> kicks off with the title track, and what strikes me immediately is the guitar tone.<\/p>\n

It may sound strange, but with this latest album Grave Digger sound a lot darker and, dare I say it, more \u201cmetal\u201d than previous releases. Rather than rely on those oft generic and predictable Euro power metal gallops, Bone Collector<\/em> stirs deeper in the dungeon. Amidst a flurry of thrashing riffs and pounding drums, vocalist Chris Boltendahl barks \u201cIn your final nightmare you hear is call; a chilling whisper, a warning for all\u201d<\/em>. The only let up provided is the chorus, but even then it remains a bruising affair especially with the quake of Jens Becker\u2019s bass.<\/p>\n

It could be argued that \u2018Bone Collector\u2019 is one of the band\u2019s most convincing songs in a long while, and after I\u2019d experienced its menacing joys I hoped subsequent tracks would be as punishing. Well, they certainly don\u2019t disappoint; \u2018The Rich, The Poor, The Dying\u2019 fizzes in with some scorching hot axe work from Tobias Kersting whose tone transports the fans back to the halcyon days of metal and coupled with the burly drums of Marcus Kniep, this tune is another winner. In fact, the band sounds totally pissed off in their steely tirades which sizzle between a volatile thrash and straight up traditional metal pummeling.<\/p>\n

Each instrument ploughs a clear, distinctive path; the mixing of each segment being a scintillating expression resulting in a batch of bombastic tracks. Major favourites for me are \u2018Riders Of Doom\u2019 with its literal Anthrax-style of chugging. There\u2019s more galvanising axe work on \u2018Graveyard Kings\u2019 and the Mot\u00f6rhead-esque bashing of \u2018Forever Evil & Buried Alive\u2019. Again I have to refer to Boltendahl because his performance here is of a man possessed, driving forth in similar fashion to Lemmy (Mot\u00f6rhead) or Udo Dirkschneider (ex-Accept).<\/p>\n

There are no gimmicks this time round, no layers of cheese to wade through and nary a Celtic bagpipe to wheeze through. Instead, the combo pulverises, like on \u2018Kingdom Of Skulls\u2019 which begins with a steady bass line before the guitar and drum add extra thickness to the crunchy charge. \u201cEchoes of pain resonate through the air,\u201d<\/em> bellows Boltendahl on \u2018Killing Is My Pleasure\u2019 as the band taps into hints of groove and thrash, while \u2018Made Of Madness\u2019, although contemporary by design, is still a tour de force of blistering instrumentation.<\/p>\n

I suppose if I had to be picky and single out a least favourite song then I\u2019d opt for \u2018The Devil\u2019s Serenade\u2019 with its standardized mid-tempo structure which in turn tends to dampen the vocals which become more awkward and off kilter. Maybe the same could also be said for stomper \u2018Mirror Of Hate\u2019, but hey, it\u2019s a minor quibble more than rectified by the plethora of positives on offer,<\/p>\n

The album culminates with the brooding \u2018Whispers Of The Damned\u2019 which begins like Metallica circa \u2018Enter Sandman\u2019 before turning into a similar chord progression to Ozzy Osbourne\u2019s classic \u2018Diary Of A Madman\u2019 until further dark subtleties are revealed. It\u2019s an epic track but a world away from some of the Euro power metal the band have crafted previously. Instead, you find yourself immersed in a dark, almost Gothic landscape perfectly suited to the cover art as flapping, cawing crows circle above misty graves and smouldering buildings.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s clich\u00e9 to state that a band has returned to form but that\u2019s clearly the case with Bone Collector<\/em>, an album that at times seems more comfortable in the realms of Anthrax circa Persistence Of Time<\/em> (1990) and latter day Overkill. And I\u2019ve no doubt that after a few spins of this bones will not be collected but broken.<\/p>\n

Neil Arnold<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

GRAVE DIGGERBone Collector RPM-ROAR (2025)Rating: 8\/10 Forty-five years after forming, Teutonic titans Grave Digger unleash their 21st full-length studio album. Once again it\u2019s a solid reminder of how consistent this posse has been and so with more striking artwork in tow, Bone Collector kicks off with the title track, and what strikes me immediately is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,184],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-grave-digger"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104426"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104426\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104428,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104426\/revisions\/104428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}