Graveyard - Lights Out
Nuclear Blast
hard rock/stoner rock
9 songs (35:36)
Release year: 2012
Nuclear Blast
Reviewed by Stefan
They’re from Sweden, they’re hairy and beardy, they’re high on electricity, they haven’t invented the wheel but know how to roll it with class and stamina… Here’s Graveyard!

For starters, let us get rid of the obvious, those lads are nothing but vile revivalists getting the whole of their inspiration from a music they’re twice too young to have known when it was fresh. Even worse, they’re proud to revive something which, from 1969 to 1972, would have fitted nicely along luminaries such as Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Spirit, Deep Purple, Foghat and even Tim (…and Jeff!) Buckley, bands and artists from which their sound so clearly derives. Actually, as all seems to come naturally to them, you get the feeling that nothing here is forced or artificial (which, in itself, is already quite the tour de force).

All of this results in a short album (just 36 minutes, a revivalist album length too!) which works even better than the band’s preceding efforts. Whether it is the harshest hard rockers (An Industry of Murder, Seven Seven, Goliath), the amazing bluesy power ballad (Slow Motion Countdown, epic!, relayed on the finishing line by a groovy 20/20 which deserve the rate), on nervous or laidback blues tracks (Endless Night, Hard Times Lovin’) or on the more plebeian rocking songs (The Suits, the Laws & Uniforms and Fool in the End which both reminded me of what a band like Kings of Leon can do at their heaviest), every moment of Lights Out attain its goal so well that the competition (Wolfmother, Buckcherry, The Sword, etc.), though comprised of more famed combos, is easily vanquished by Graveyard’s superior grace and versatility.

Inhabited by numerous ghosts from a glorious time, this Graveyard will be hard to resist for the 70s rock, hard rock and heavy metal lover, except if you’re of these embittered old men which deny young people the right to live in the past and play their music accordingly, but, honestly, when it’s done that well, with so obvious a love and savoir-faire for this kind of thing, it’s just delicious!
Killing Songs :
An Industry of Murder, Slow Motion Countdown, Seven Seven, 20/20 (Tunnel Vision)
Stefan quoted 88 / 100
Other albums by Graveyard that we have reviewed:
Graveyard - Altar of the Sculpted Skulls reviewed by Alex and quoted 75 / 100
Graveyard - Hisingen Blues reviewed by Goat and quoted 85 / 100
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