Reformed Portland, Oregon sludge-shovelers Graves at Sea will release their long-awaited debut album, The Curse that is Graves at Sea, April 1 on Relapse Records. This in itself is a noteworthy event.
A single surfaced in 2004, a split with Asunder in 2005, and that was it. The band, based initially in Arizona, then in California, and now in Portland, Oregon, got back together in 2012 and have played shows steadily since. The Curse that Is… arrives following a split with Sourvein and the This Place is Poison EP in 2014, and it’s a record that meets 13 years of expectation with gut-ripping extremity, founding guitarist Nick Phit and vocalist Nathan Misterek joined by bassist Sketchy Jeff McGarrity and drummer Bryan Sours on an encompassing eight-song/76-minute double-LP, each individual record capped with a side-consuming epic work, whether it’s the 15-minute, violin-inclusive “The Ashes Made Her Beautiful” or the mega-chugging 14-minute finale “Minimum Slave” that ends the album in the only way it possibly could — with a lingering hum of malevolent noise.