I'm gonna be in the minority, but I dont mind, in theory, when bands are making albums that are very reminiscant of classic albums in the genre. I don't care about Gruesome that much, because I don't care that much about Death in general, but if I was into them I'd absolutely love it. The truth is that outside of vague death metal sound and some metal canons, there isn't anything that sounds like Spiritual Healing outside of Spiritual Healing. I think it's much healthier for the scene to revive some old classic, rather than to go for generic "osdm" inspired sound. That being said, at the end of the day it's your typical "case-by-case" situation, there are multiple "copy" albums that I adore, and there are something like Sieges Even's Life Cycle, which doesn't do much outside of referencing Watchtower, in my humble opinion. I hope Death fans will find Silent Echoes enjoyable, I think they did a pretty good job with Twisted Prayers, altough I never was a big fan of Spiritual Healing. Hopefully by trying to recapture the oldschool techdeath sound, they will escape many traps that modern soulless tekdef bands have caught themselves into. Also since their debut was very Leprosy-like, and this album seems to be very Human inspired, from what the reviewer says, are we to expect that their next output will follow the path of Individual Thought Patterns?

Personnaly I love Death and really like Gruesome approach ! It take à lot of skills too replicate the sound but mostly the songwriting template of à genre defining band without sounding redundant !

Damn, this really does sound crazily similar to Death at times, doesn't it. I get BurntEmbodiment's point though - Death didn't get to write enough albums for their sound to go stale before Chuck passed, and there's not many other bands that recapture that sound to this extent, so if someone is really hungry for more Death there's every chance this will scratch that itch very effectively. It reminds me a bit of how similar Crown Lands can get to Rush. That said, I'm a lot less interested in Death than I was 10-15 years ago, so it's perhaps missed its opportunity to find a major fan in me, even though I do find this pretty enjoyable

Gruesome are raising some interesting philosophical questions about what the essence of music is, what defines a genre, what separates a thief from a fan paying homage, and million others.

My opinion is that this band should have existed as a one off YouTube, charity project rather than a commercial product. These guys are making a career out of copying Death, they book shows, the sell merchandise. Arguably they are not making lots of money but that doesn’t render it ethical.

One album and a couple of shows would have been a reasonable tribute to Chuck. Anything beyond that is just weird to me.

Written by ForestsAlive on 10.06.2025 at 20:09

Gruesome are raising some interesting philosophical questions about what the essence of music is, what defines a genre, what separates a thief from a fan paying homage, and million others.

My opinion is that this band should have existed as a one off YouTube, charity project rather than a commercial product. These guys are making a career out of copying Death, they book shows, the sell merchandise. Arguably they are not making lots of money but that doesn’t render it ethical.

One album and a couple of shows would have been a reasonable tribute to Chuck. Anything beyond that is just weird to me.

I've heard much worse copycats than this.
I don't think this band defiles (for lack of a better word) Death's music & legacy.