### The Absence: From your grave

#### 06/12/10 || InquisitorGeneralis

This is what melodeath should sound like. No keyboards, no folk instruments, no clean vocals except for one single section; just lots and lots of melodic, dual-guitar harmonies, simple but still interesting song structures, and an excellent production. “From your grave”, the debut album by Florida’s The Absence, is not perfect but it’s enjoyable, thrashy, melodic death metal that should appeal to people who used to like In Flames, Dark Tranquility, and Amorphis before they all tucked their dicks between their legs and gave up on kicking ass. It is clear that these guys all wore out their copies of “Slaughter of the Soul” and this is certainly not the most original record you will ever hear. But, it’s damn good and listenable all the way through.

“Heaven ablaze” represents everything good about “From Your Grave”: excellent guitar work over driving death metal. There are lots of expect tempo shifts and breaks but certainly no chuggah chuggah breakdowns. Some cheesiness creeps in from time to time but a little epic-tinted cheese can go a long way. Iron Maiden has been filling stadiums with it since The Absence was in nursery school. “A breath beneath” is a solid, thrashing opener with some quality soloing. Actually, there may too much soloing on this album. Looks like a bunch of Testament records got worn out in The Absences basement along with At the Gates and Carcass. I think there is a cover of “Into the pit” on one of their later records.

Things start to sound the same after a bit though on “From your grave” but the band’s talent, especially the guitarists, helps rescue this CD from falling into the dark hole of boring repetition. All of the songs besides the intros clock in at over four minutes in length and it is clear that these guys put some time into their shit. While most of the songs follow the same refrain/chorus/refrain/chorus/solo/chorus/solo pattern The Absence make the solos and rocking sections count. “Summoning the darkness” is a prime example of this. The Absence sound like At the Gates (I mean really, the vocals are very fucken close) with more virtuoso soloing. The drumming is also tight; no gravity blasting but lots and lots of change ups, double bass, and solid grooves. The production is very modern and clean which is what you would expect for a modern, melodic death/thrash record produced by Captain Forehead himself, Eric Rutan.

“From Your Anus” is not the most original or groundbreaking release in the world of death metal. But, it contains a big bunch of good tunes and some serious ass-kicking in the guitar department. I certainly do not like much melodeath, but this I can get into because The Absence stay pretty thrashy and heavy while not diving too deep into the pool of emotional, pretto wankery that seems to infect most of the melodeath that I come across these days. The closest record I can relate this to would probably be “Wages of Sin” by Arch Enemy (a record I like quite a bit) so if that shit floats your boat then by all means give The Absence a listen.

- Information
- Released: 2005
- Label: Metal Blade
- Website: The Absence MySpace
- Band
- Jamie Stewart: vocals
- Peter Joseph: guitar
- Patrick Pintavalle: guitar
- Nick Calaci: bass
- Matt Solka: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. Intro
- 02. A Breath Beneath
- 03. Necropolis
- 04. From Your Grave
- 05. Heaven Ablaze
- 06. Summoning the Darkness
- 07. Shattered
- 08. I, Deceiver
- 09. My Ruin
- 10. Seven Demons