What thrills me about 2010's bands is the bewildering ability of some of them to bypass years of time that other bands need to evolve and set a firm foot on the path. Not an unusual phenomenon in Sweden though! GRAVEYARD AFTER GRAVEYARD is perhaps an exhausting name yet their third release and second EP "Hellhound On My Trail" was nothing but the opposite with easy-peasy 19 minutes of playful haze.

A definite vocal-based album as the growls are sheer nail and smash like a deeper and keener version of Mikael Stanne, conveying such a scratching agony you can feel the rhythm guitar chords whirling inside of you. But you can't really tell for sure whether the backbone of "Out To Feed" is actually the black metal double bass drum beats or the general thrash groove. Either way, the track ended up similar to a metal mass endowing "Giant Of The Undead" with the same scale yet the latter also bears more vocal overdubs as well as bits of tremolo on the guitar. Although the beginner solo technical level is quite disappointing, its smoothness coupled with the bloodthirstiness of the rhythm guitar chords spawns a holy mingle of diverse elements from several extreme metal subgenres melting in such a harmony.

The impressive vocal abilities of the singer take a whole new level in "Infernal Catacombs" to an expressive theatrical approach exploring how far he can go - from evil laughs to pseudo growls to harmonics - even though the same verses kept occurring continuously till yawn. Same for the guitar in "Screams In The Night" yet that matters little when a ball of energy is playing the vocal role.

From what seems like a regular rehearsal discussion of "Learn To Burn" the intro hits you like a ton of bricks spreading positive vibes all high in tempo, yet some passages here are more condensed than the others as the rhythm guitar relieves the tension with open chords instead of the palm mutes. The solo guitar here isn't soloing per se, just the way the final track "Feeding Of The Hellhounds" isn't a track per se but rather that attitude of "let's do this and see what happens" as some sort of experiment, even though I doubt it would lead anywhere.

Despite an average instrumentation, there's no doubt that "Hellhound On My Trail" is a vocal masterpiece and that by itself is capable to lay the cornerstone of a much bigger thing. Eagerly waiting for the band's next release!<