Rage Therapy – Begravement – Horrific Illusions Beckon

Review by Iron Mike

• Band – https://begravement.bandcamp.com/album/horrific-illusions-beckon
  • 4 piece out of Minneapolis – Vox/Guitar, Guitar, Bass, Drums
• Release Date: 08/11/23
• Recorded and Mixed at 14:59 Studios, Mastered at Signaturetone Studios
• Tags: death metal, melodic death metal, metal, Minneapolis

Retro Reviews take a look at older releases from local bands. MNBleedsMetal is primarily focused on the present of the living local scene. Retro Reviews provide a window into the past to hear how we got here.

Sound/Mix

A lot of people may not realize just how important sound engineers are for bands. A venue with a cheap PA system and unskilled sound engineer will make a great band sound terrible, while a killer PA and talented engineer can make a bad band sound good. The Minnesota Scene is really lucky to have both 14:59 Studios and SignatureTone Studios available to local bands. The recording and mixing done by Will Maravelas at 14:59 and the mastering by Adam Tucker at SignatureTone Studios help this album sound as good as it can.

Performance

According to the liner notes on their Bandcamp site, Begravement is made up of Ezra Blumenfeld – Guitars/Vox, Owen Hiber – Guitars, Matt Schrampfer – Fretless Bass/Backing Vox, Grady Westling – Drums. Each one of these guys is talented, skilled and perfectly capable of bringing their parts to life. While it’s unclear how their songwriting happens, the songs themselves are performed at a professional level. This gives the 4-piece an “international band” vibe rather than “local act”, meaning the performance on this one is up there with most extreme metal bands on the worldwide stage.

Highlights

After listening to this one for some time, the track Intergalactic Espionage lodges in my brain time and again. The pounding, yet melodic intro gives way to a killer, aggressively catchy, thrashy riff that weaves back and forth with variations of the first rhythm throughout the song. Blumenfeld’s vocals roar into the song about a minute and a half in and complement the music very well. The track continues to build, then relaxes into an eerie melodic bit around the 3:15 mark, giving the audience a brief breather before Begravement kicks your teeth in again, then comes back to another, more tension-filled, energetic breathing section.

If the album has a “hit single”, this one is it. The track showcases the wide variety of talent the band has on tap, from riffs guaranteed to make you put on the stank face, then bang your head, then feel the emotions poured into the acoustic guitar/clean vocal part just prior to the 6 minute mark, before hammering the song home as it fades out at about the 7:30 minute mark.

While not their longest track, Intergalactic Espionage comes in on the longer side, with most of the tracks landing around the 5-minute mark. All-in-all, this 9-song banger of an album will take you on a ride anyone who bleeds metal should enjoy.

Shade

Very, very few bands ever drop an album that has nothing but crushing songs – where you don’t skip a single track. But what makes a killer album, well, killer, is having more songs you don’t skip than not. This one does have a few that don’t hold my attention after multiple plays – not every song has a “money riff” (the part that sticks in your head and makes you come back to listen again and again). After piles of listens to the whole album in order, by the final track, Return to Planet Earth (a 10:04 long opus), I’m ready to move on to the next album and/or band.

Summary

This band, this album, is disgustingly underrated. I reached out to Matt before writing this to see if a new one was about to drop (didn’t want to write this review just to have a new album land a day later…). He told me they are working on “the finishing touches of new material” and that a followup album was on the way. He went on to say they’re taking their time and want to give the creative process the time it deserves. Nothing wrong with that other than patience is not a trait I possess- ha! Hurry up guys – can’t wait to hear new Begravement!