### Grave Digger: Ballads of a hangman

#### 08/01/09 || Euthanatos

This album really pisses me off. Grave Digger really pisses me off. No, it’s not what you’re thinking. I actually like the band. Scratch that, I love the band. But not right now.

See, a lot of people say the 90’s was a lost decade in terms of metal. I say nay. NAY. If you were into power metal like I was, it was a glorious time to be alive. Blind Guardian was releasing brilliant stuff like “Imaginations From the Other Side” and “Nightfall in Middle-Earth”. Gamma Ray was releasing the legendary “Land of the Free” and “Somewhere Out In Space”. And Grave Digger was releasing an astonishingly brilliant and masterful trilogy of “Knights of the Cross”, “Tunes of War” and my favorite, “Excalibur”. Then what the fuck happened? Beats me.

While “The Grave Digger” was pretty good, it wasn’t as memorable as before. And from “Rhengold” on, it all went to shit. I mean, really. But what fascinates me the most is that Grave Digger didn’t modify one ounce of their style. It is still, undeniably, power metal, with an eternal double bass and cutting riffs. They just seem to have ran out of good ideas.

Listen to the first track on this album, for instance. “The Gallows Pole”. It has everything you want in a Grave Digger song. The aggressive riff. The yell at the beginning. The double bass. So what’s wrong? Well, nothing is wrong, but nothing is right either. It sounds uninspired, put together just for the hell of it, “oh god, we have to do another album”.

From then on, it’s pretty much a repetition of former albums. Nothing stands out. At all. And trust me, it pains me to say that. I knew I had it coming when they first released the single for “Pray”, which was just as bad as the previous singles for their past three albums. But one has to hope. What is life without hope? Without dreams? But, there it is. Grave Digger have taken my dreams and dragged them down the shitter.

And no, I don’t want to hear another power balled from you guys, like “Lonely The Innocent Dies”. I want battle. I want war. I want speed. I want to be taken back to my teenage years.

Damn you, Grave Digger. Damn you all to hell!

The cover: Grave Digger’s covers are usually cool. This one is too. It has skulls and someone hanged to death. That’s reasonable. I’m still upset, though.

4 falls from great heights out of 10.

- Information
- Released: 2009
- Label: Napalm Records
- Website: www.grave-digger.de
- Band
- Chris Boltendahl: vocals
- Manni Schmidt: guitars
- Thilo Herrmann: guitars
- Jens Becker: bass
- Stefan Arnold: drums
- Hans Peter “H.P.” Katzenburg: keyboards

- Tracklist
- 01. The Gallows Pole
- 02. Ballad of a Hangman
- 03. Hell of Disillusion
- 04. Grave of the Addicted
- 05. Lonely the Innocent Dies
- 06. Into the War
- 07. The Shadow of Your Soul
- 08. Funeral for a Fallen Angel
- 09. Stormrider
- 10. Pray