Sweden's retro hard rockers Graveyard are back with album number 6, and it's also the title of their latest release for Nuclear Blast Records, coming five years after Peace. Right from the opening, atmospheric jangly guitar chords of "Godnatt", it appears we might be in for a different ride on 6. Though "Twice" offers up more of those frantic and hard rocking arrangements we've come to expect from Graveyard, "I Follow You" dips back into bluesy melancholy, as if Jim is heading back to the Morrison Hotel. "Breathe in Breathe Out" again drifts along like a tumbleweed floating between an outlaw staredown, and "Sad Song" seems like a leftover from an old album by The Band. "Just a Drop" however, rocks, and rocks hard, with riffs that would have sounded right at home on an old Grand Funk Railroad or Cactus album. The album closes out with three more bluesy snoozers, "Bright Lights", "No Way Out", and "Rampant Fields", the latter a slow blues that at least has some fiery guitar soloing. Some folks have compared some of this to The Black Crowes or Tedeschi Trucks Band...now I like both those bands, but I don't want Graveyard to sound like them.
Ultimately, 6 is a fairly big disappointment; while they were never the heaviest of the horde of Swedish retro rockers, they always stood out among the rest as the most unique sounding, with an evil occult edge and plenty of snarling riffs. Sadly, there's little of that here, and while Joakim Nilsson's vocals are better than ever, I find much of this album way too bluesy, and quite frankly, a bore.
Track Listing
Side A
1. Godnatt
2. Twice
3. I Follow You
4. Breathe In Breathe Out
5. Sad Song
6. Just A Drop
7. Bright Lights
8. No Way Out
9. Rampant Fields
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