Gravemind – Introsphere (Album Review)
Gravemind - Introsphere
Released: 2nd August 2024
Lineup:
Bailey Schembri // Vocals
Miki Simankevicius // Guitar
Karl Steller // Drums
Aden Young // Guitars
Damon Bredin // Guitars
Online:
Clean vocals in metal is a touchy and divisive subject, especially among the scene’s seemingly many elitists and self-appointed gatekeepers. Admittedly, if done poorly, clean vocals can sound pretty cheesy and watered-down amidst heavy guitars and pounding drums. However, if done well, clean vocals can add rich character and great memorability to a heavy song. And that’s what we have here.
And of course, if a heavy screamer can actually sing as well, why not utilize this?
In fact, Melbourne’s Gravemind have upped the ante in the heaviness stakes, while adding a healthy dose of soaring cleans, on this, their long-awaited sophomore album.
That’s not to say their debut, 2019’s Conduit, was a lightweight. Far from it. It’s a veritable beast of an album. It’s just that Introsphere is even beastlier.
A change of singer can obviously cause massive upheavals and all sorts of issues for any band, and such is the case here (we will go into those issues in our incoming interview with the band, rather than here.) But it can also open new musical doors, and it certainly has for Gravemind. Again, not that previous singer, Dylan Gillies-Parsons, was any kind of slouch whatsoever. He absolutely wasn’t. But new vocal kid on the block Bailey Schembri brings an even greater range. His howls are a little more guttural. His high-end screeches reach a little higher. And then of course, he brings those aforementioned soaring cleans, which add the welcome qualities to proceedings here (yes, they are ridiculously well-written and executed).
Throughout the piece, he sings, and screams, like his life depends on it, and proves he has slotted into this band like a hand into a perfectly tailored glove.
The album signals its intentions in no uncertain terms on monstrous opener '>_TERMINAL', which fairly rips the listener a new one while also introducing those beautiful cleans in the last third of the track. The deep, fist-to-the-face brutality, laced with ear-pleasing melody, continues on 'Deathtouch', a strong contender for best cut on the album. It’s easy to see why this was chosen as a single. This is one of those albums that never lets up, never eases back on the intensity accelerator, but somehow manages to be dynamic and non-monotonous at the same time, right through to the moody but intense five-minute-plus closer, 'Pranic Lift'.
Some of said dynamics emanate from the mid-tempo, mid-album stomper 'Anhedonia', which vies with 'Deathtouch' for best song honours.
Along the way, we get no fewer than three high-profile guest spots: Reba Meyers, from American metalcore act Code Orange, on 'Anhedonia'; DOOM video game composer Mick Gordon on the alternately chaotic and groove-laden 'Failstate'; and Jamie Hails from the mighty Polaris on the frenzied, sub-three-minute blast known as 'F.E.A.R.' Three serious gets for Gravemind! Hopefully these guests will help call global attention to this album, attention it richly deserves.
It’s a difficult album to categorise, it doesn’t really fit into a nice convenient box (and this is a good thing.) It’s heavier than everyday, garden-variety metalcore. It’s too melodic to be considered deathcore. It’s not strictly prog or djent (some of the riffs and guitar tones are kinda sorta djenty, but not really.) And it’s certainly not straight-up thrash or death metal. It takes elements from all of the above and melds it all into something all their own.
It’s Gravemind music. That’s its genre.
This, and the fact that virtually everything about this album is world-class – songwriting, production, musicianship, vocals – should find Introsphere reaching a global audience, and the band on the road internationally.
This album is a lesson for the tiny-minded, whiny “I hate clean vocals!” crowd, a lesson that a band can feature clean vocals and be brutishly heavy. I won’t be at all surprised to see this show up on many people’s top albums of 2024. It’s very likely to be on mine.
Introduce yourself to Introsphere the moment it drops.
Gravemind - Introsphere Tracklisting
1. >_TERMINAL
2. Deathtouch
3. House of Cards
4. Rorschach
5. Anhedonia (Ft. Reba Meyers)
6. Failstate (Ft. Mick Gordon)
7. True Life
8. Aloy
9. F.E.A.R. (Ft. Jamie Hails)
10. Pranic Lift
Rating: 9/10
Introsphere is out Friday, August 2 via Greyscale Records. Pre-order here
Review By Rod Whitfield
