Band:	Heretic Soul
Album:	Life Becomes Our Grave
Style:	Death metal
Release date:	2008
A review by:	Raiden

01. As We Rot (Intro)
02. 21 Grams
03. Life Becomes Our Grave
04. No Apocalypse
05. Sick Malice
06. Faceless

Style: Death Metal
Country: Turkey
Label: Self-Released
Length: 23.43
Recorded: 2007

Line-up:
Erhan Karaca - Drums
Sarp Keski - Vocals, guitars
Orcun Kocakoc - Bass


I haven't heard a lot of Turkish Death Metal (in fact the only other band that instantly springs to mind is Nettlethrone) in my time, but that which I have stumbled upon has been rather good. After only a few spins of this CD, "Life Becomes Our Grave" by Heretic Soul, I feel that this trend is only continuing. Life Becomes Our Grave is this three-piece's second release after their "Everything Is Meaningless And Grey" demo. I haven't heard their first demo, but it does make me interested in hearing it after listening to this EP.

While Heretic Soul only has three members, their music proves that such a line-up is completely sufficient. Apart from being played well, one of the things that stand out about Life Becomes Our Grave is how well it is written. It's not a full on constant blast of Death Metal, but it still stays extreme and while it's more structured, it stays out of the waters of Melodeath. There is a lot of variety on this release though. The riffs are sometimes Thrashy in structure, yet played to Death Metal heaviness. However you see the guitar-work though, it's consistent, heavy and has nicely prominent notes. The songs "21 Grams" and "No Apocalypse" are examples of having assaulting full-on sections with quickly spoken growls and blasting instruments, but also slower sections with sometimes higher note riffs, or on/off guitar strumming accompanied by a steady beat around the tom drums. This band knows when to execute different structures of extremity, and can really pull out the technical playing when required (double bass drumming for example isn't used all the time, but is completely appropriate and sounds great when it is). I've only briefly mentioned the vocals, but it should be known that Sarp Keski has a very strong, penetrating growl. He almost shouts through his growling, but it's a really powerful sound and something which you could quite easily shout to at the top of your voice.

I could really just keep rambling about how I found this or that section of a song really nice or the drumming or guitar riffs in this section were really memorable and instantly got you nodding your head, but there are a couple of downsides among this otherwise impressive release. One of which is the production and the bass. From the start you can tell that the bass sound isn't sharp at all. It basically just gives forth a murky wavy sound. This dull reverberation does tend to flood the rest of the music, but while it's a low point of this release, no doubt it could be something that could be fixed on any further, better produced releases.

So what you have here is an EP that doesn't have perfect sound, but excellently written music that is also very well executed. It's all worthwhile though, and I do look forward to future releases from Heretic Soul.