Scott's Stash: The Grand Leveller

This one comes from the batch of albums that Drew gave my brother:

Benediction- The Grand Leveller (1991)

Once more I find myself holding an album belonging to a band whose name I've known for ages but have never listened to. At some point I'm going to stop even bothering to mention this, as it'll probably be the norm for this series.

Actually Benediction's music isn't completely new to me, at least in part. Dave Ingram replaced Karl Willetts as the vocalist for Bolt Thrower from 1998 until 2004. I've always liked the one album Bolt Thrower released with Ingram on vocals, so when I went searching for an album to listen to while driving down the toll road and saw The Grand Leveller, I knew that even if the music sucked, the vocals wouldn't.

Of course, I didn't expect that the music would actually suck. Lo and behold, it turned out to be damned good. The production and overall tone of the instruments dates the album in the best way possible: it's the sound of British death metal a few years past its infancy but well before death metal's general decline into frustrating mediocrity in the late '90s. Not that nothing good came out of those years, but the early '90s produced some really good shit, and the response to some of it (i.e., black metal) was inspiring, too. The Grand Leveller is a good example of that time, if a lesser-known one.

Dave Ingram sounds good here, as does the rest of the band (not that I have a point of comparison). The songs are varied in tempo and mood, but not in a predictable, slow-doomy-number-now-something-faster-now-a-couple-midpaced-ones way. The riffs are killer, and the solos are too. As I mentioned earlier, I like the production; the heaviness of the music doesn't rely on it, and it accentuates what I think of as the outer edges of the sound. The lyrics aren't awful, but they're not particularly good, either. (I'm leaving the issue of the importance of lyrics alone.) There's a Celtic Frost cover here that's cool enough, but feels unnecessary, as covers often do.

Overall, Benediction surpassed my expectations. One thing I've noted as I've listened to this album a few times is that it works well as a complete unit, to the point where I don't have a favorite song. That could be a reflecting on how I listen to music, but I think it's more a sign of a well-crafted and well-played album. This isn't unique in death metal, but it's always a pleasure to put on a record and be able to listen to it all the way through, knowing that there's a sick riff or real headbanging part just around the corner. Good shit.


P.S. The photo of Dave Ingram in the liner notes is priceless.