Degrave Metalithic Review

Degrave

Metalithic

Shredhead Records

2025

A surefire way to get me to listen to a band is if the word “thrash” shows up anywhere in the description of their sound. I’ve loved it from the jump, cutting my teeth on the classics in the early ’90s to playing in my own band from 1991–1995 in my teens, it’s been and always will be part of me. With that, lace up the white high tops, throw on your favorite sleeveless band shirt, skinny jeans, and let’s talk about Missouri-based heathens Degrave and their newest (and fourth overall) release, the nine-song Metalithic.

For the uninitiated, Degrave have been ripping it up in the “Show Me State” since 2016, operating as a fearsome four-piece. They tread familiar ground, but with a precision attack and a fresh melding of influences that you don’t often hear in newer bands. Metalithic was recorded by Conrad Hildebrand at Five Turn Production Studios, and mixed and mastered by John Breeden of Johnny DCat Entertainment. Thankfully, their love for throwback bands comes through in the recording. The final mix is raw, lively, and feels minimally polished - urgent in a way that suits the style perfectly. Everything sits nicely up front without fighting for space. My only gripe is with the vocals from dual vocalists/guitarists Clyde Daniels and Dylan Volmert – they’re a bit too reverb-heavy and occasionally too loud for my taste, though that might just be preference.

Across the album you’ll find fast tempos, down-picked chug riffs, powerful leads, busy drumming (Caleb Bethel), and pulsing, complementary bass lines (Isiah “Cliff” Curtis). Their thrash pedigree runs deep, with hints of D.R.I., Toxic Holocaust, Exodus, Nuclear Assault, and the often criminally underrated Seattle-based Forced Entry (especially in the John Connelly/Tony Benjaminesque vocals). The compositions run on pure adrenaline, averaging three to four minutes, aside from the 7+ minute opener “Usurper of the Flame” (which kicks off with a wall of feedback) and “Burn Up the Sky” at 6:26, which veers into stoner territory with its Sabbathy bass line and fuzzed-out guitars thick enough to grow a small woodland creature. Bassist Isiah even gets his own spotlight in “Ignis Accendere,” a nod to the “bass solo take 1” tradition.

Elsewhere, the rapid-fire verses and pinch-harmonic guitar work of “Every Fucking Day” stand out, especially when the song breaks into a doomtastic section around 3:30. Spoken vocal passages pop up throughout the album too, adding another layer that separates Degrave from the usual crop of revivalists. My favorites? The pummeling “Lockdown,” which carries a whiff of Boston’s Wargasm, and the raging, chaotic “Living in a Smokescreen,” blasting out with nitro-fueled BPMs, shredding leads, and a climactic death-growled descent into chromatic madness. The closer, “Death Is,” rides creepy, undulating riffs into a mid-tempo plod reminiscent of Coroner, capped off with a menacing, hissed chorus and an ending of ear-splitting feedback - the perfect bookend.

Degrave aren’t rewriting the playbook, but they’re running the field with their own moves - adventurous, faithful, and full of energy. In a genre where many are content to simply ape their heroes, it’s refreshing to hear a band blending styles into something that feels like their own, even when it leans familiar. Throw this on, handle with care, skank around your living room like a wild dog, and bask in their bone-crackin’ fever. Thrash or be thrashed indeed…

~TB