Hellgrav

Hellgrav is a German death metal entity. On 21 March 2025, the band released their independent debut full-length album, Dehumanized, later issued on 24 July 2026 via Rat Covenant (cassette) and 17 July 2026 via Fetzner Death Records (vinyl).

Hellgrav, Dehumanized Review: This review will evaluate every aspect of the album, from its intricate musical composition to its production.

The First Three Sins, The Summary

The First Sin, The Strings/Keys: Razor-sharp HM-2 riffing, chainsaw-textured guitars, and groove-driven songwriting forge an uncompromising Swedish-inspired death metal assault. The Second Sin, The Vocals: Deep, commanding growls project raw authority, delivering every grotesque lyric with unwavering brutality. The Third Sin, The Percussions: Tight, punchy drumming balances relentless speed with crushing grooves, driving every hymn with immense physical impact.

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The Fourth Sin, Overall Discussion

The Vosceral Slaughterhouse

The moment the listener presses play, the opening hymn Dehumanized greets them with over forty minutes of unadulterated brutality, spread across eleven punishing hymns. This is music that flat-out refuses to hold your hand; instead, it violently grabs the listener and hurls them straight into a relentless blender of chaos, gore, violence, and graphic bodily horror.

Hellgrav does not build tension with quiet atmospheric intros or subtle teases—it immediately locks into a high-velocity slaughter.

The Chainsaw Cocktail

Musically, Dehumanized serves up a lethal cocktail: pairing gruesome lyrics of explicit horror and gore with music engineered to melt the listener’s eardrums. The record strikes a brutal balance between classic death metal aggression and the heavy, groove-laden intensity of brutal death metal. It relies on razor-sharp, chainsaw-textured riffs that slash through the mix with unrelenting momentum.

Rather than relying solely on continuous, featureless noise, Hellgrav embeds deep, infectious grooves directly into their explosive assault. The chainsaw-like guitar tone provides a gritty, visceral texture, while the songwriting seamlessly shifts between blinding speed and heavy, neck-snapping groove passages — ensuring every hymn lands with maximum physical impact.

The HM-2 Grindhouse

The devilmanship across Dehumanized is honed to perfection, scoring a composition that is precisely executed across both its musical and instrumental framework. The chainsaw-textured, groove-driven guitars are built around an iconic, buzzsaw HM-2-style tone — thick, grinding, highly saturated, and roaring with that classic Swedish death metal ferocity.

Rather than getting lost in over-technical complexity, the riffcraft relies on sheer physical force. The guitar work swings fluidly between crushing, mid-tempo stomps and sudden, explosive bursts of speed.

Every riff is delivered with a blunt, percussive attack, ensuring the Swedish-style buzzsaw grind maintains a heavy, irresistible momentum from start to finish.

The Grinding Engine

Anchoring the low-end, Hellgrav’s bass sits deep within the mix, functioning as a heavy, rumbling substructure directly beneath the roaring chainsaw guitars. The percussion battery is punchy, modern-tight, and relentlessly groove-forward. Relying on solid double-kick runs, the drums alternate seamlessly between fast, driving passages and heavy, stomping rhythms that give the entire album an infectious, headbanging pulse.

The Voice of Butchery

Positioned prominently at the front of the mix, the vocals cut through the dense guitar barrage without ever getting swallowed. Delivering deep, forceful growls, the performance is raw and authoritative — eschewing overly processed effects or unreadable slams in favour of solid, commanding death metal vocals that anchor the album’s overarching brutality.

The Studio Autopsy

The production of Dehumanized relies on a direct, impact-first philosophy. The chainsaw-textured guitars are kept wide and abrasive across the stereo field, while the bass is fused seamlessly into the low-end to provide maximum physical weight. The drums are captured tight and punchy, providing a sharp rhythmic backbone, while the vocals are placed upfront with minimal processing to maintain their raw authority.

Mixed for clarity without sacrificing grit, the album achieves a clean, heavy, and modern death metal punch that hits with immediate force.

The Final Body Count

The slaughter reaches its violent conclusion with the closing hymn, Dehumanized. As the final HM-2 chord ring-out dissolves, the band leaves behind no gentle ambient fade or lingering exit passage — only the searing, physical sensation of your eardrums melting in the silence.

Overall, Dehumanized is a hammering and brutal fruit of art. It refuses to hide behind subgenre trends — it is not groove metal, and it certainly is not melodeath. It is a pure HM-2–driven death metal engine, built from the ground up to deliver crushing momentum.

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The Fifth Sin, The Memorabilia

For me, Dehumanized rings loudly in my eardrums — a brutal, groove-grit assault that stands as a heavy, modern plunge into the depths of brutal death metal and buzzsaw aggression. While I usually prefer my death or black metal uncooked and liberally seasoned with the rawest, old-school grit, Hellgrav might not have that exact vintage seasoning I typically hunt for.

Yet, it remains thoroughly enjoyable and well worthy of a place on my collection shelves. End of the day, it accomplishes exactly what it set out to do: it is brutal, heavy, monstrously groovy, unapologetically loud, and packed with sick lyrics.

The Sixth Sin, The Artwork

The artwork feels a bit clean and modern — carrying that sleek, polished aesthetic reminiscent of late ’90s groove or modern metal covers — but at the end of the day, it is undeniably sick and fits the visceral themes inside.

The Seventh Sin, Disrelish

I find nothing to disrelish across this entire heavy, crushing assault.

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The Hymns

01. Mutilation of the Stillborn
02. Raging Inferno
03. Chainsaw Crew
04. Hijacked
05. Pestosteron
06. Impaled and Beheaded
07. Rotten Colony
08. Spit Out Your Teeth
09. Sadistic Death-Infector
10. Distorted Indentity
11. Dehumanized