To release a live album is act of courage, because the band is totally exposed to the fans, with its virtues and mistakes are clear for everyone to hear. Sometimes, things make the fans become disappointed, because there's a lack of honesty of the album (when the bands put endless overdubs on the album, so the live feeling is totally ripped apart), or the band isn't able to reproduce to a certain point what was done in the studio (but remember that it's usual to the bands to not be hardened to do 100% what was recorded, for no one is a metronome and punctual mistakes or differences are part of the whole thing of playing alive). But the North American quintet UNDEATH did a very good on "Live... From the Grave".

"Live... From the Grave" was recorded at Pop's in Sauget, IL on May 27, 2022, and it depicts a classic Death Metal band, focused on a form of music that is filled with the same traditional USA Death Metal features laid by acts as DEATH, MONSTROSITY, CANNIBAL CORPSE, MORBID ANGEL, AUTOPSY and others. And they're an excellent live act, because the album sounds honest (or in other words, it doesn't seem to have endless digital corrections), full of that massive and nasty energy of the genre, with a very good technical level, and the most important for an Old School act: the quintet bears musical personality. Take a bit, and prepare your ears.

The album was mastered by Arthur Rizk, and unfortunately, the name of the producer and of the mixer isn't available. But to make a good live album, it must be recorded (as this one was) on the show, but needs a mixing and mastering (please, this process is as old as records exist, because try yourself to record something directly, and have a disgusting surprise in the end, what 80's generation can explain clearly). And it really works in a great way for the band, for the sonority is brutal and oppressive, loud and with that live feeling, but in a form that anyone can understand. And what lovely artwork for the cover created by Mark Rudolph.

If you're a Death Metal fan, be sure that "Live... From the Grave" will not disappoint you, but it was made for you. And songs as "Rise from the Grave" (a furious storm of brutal guitar riffs and with very dynamical rhythmic parts), "Enhancing the Dead" (a bitter and oppressive set of slow tempos opens the song, but soon a storm of aggressive fast parts is unleashed, and always with good grunts filling the spaces), "Necrobionics" (that shows the extreme hooks of Death Metal that are inherited of Hardcore, always with very good parts of bass guitar and drums), "Defiled Again" (another moment with clear extreme hooks), "Human Chandelier" (these double bass parts of the drums are great, and the guitars shows excellent arrangements), and "Lesions of a Different Kind" are really great to be heard alive. And one funny thing: many of the talks of Alexander with the public are set as songs on the album.

In UNDEATH's own words, 'that's called fuckin' Death Metal, you guys like that shit?', so after listening to "Live... From the Grave", the only answer left if 'yes'.