And once you hit play, it becomes even more obvious as Funeral Whore comes pretty close to a straight up cover band, down to the down tuned muddier wall of buzzing noise, perhaps more so than Brutally Deceased. If you don’t believe me, just go straight to the one minute mark of “Pierce my Flesh”; that right there is “In Love” from Grave‘s debut CD. Then there is the title track, which gives more than a passing nod to about four songs from You’ll Never See…

But, when the whole affair is this well done and honest, I’ll overlook the blatant ripping off.

As I stated earlier, the production on Step Into Damnation is also culled from Grave’s first two releases rather than the cleaner hues of Entombed or Dismember, it’s dirtier, chunkier and more primal than some of the retro acts out there now, the ones mentioned above included. And the looser delivery, earthy bass and deeper vocals make the whole affair sound like it was recorded in 1990. All eleven songs are short, punchy numbers that hover around the 3-minute mark with a few getting close to four. There’s no ambitious atmospheric track, no epic number, no ambient  intros — just a bludgeoning, Neanderthal beat-down that would make Thomas Skogsberg (whose name is incidentally spelled wrong in the linear notes of the original pressing of Into the Grave) proud.

There’s an ample mix of primitive blasts and huge grooves as heard on the likes of “Buried in Hell, “The Bitch Died”,  “Obedience” (where there’s a little bit of a nod to Unleashed’s “Before the Creation of Time”), “Camp Blood” and “Failure of the Sacrifice” all of which can be directly traced to some moment or riff from Grave‘s first two albums. And if you are OK with the heavy Grave tribute band vibe, and are a fan of the source material (as I am) you could do worse than Funeral Whore as their debut is an unabashedly awesome and enjoyable,  throw back release that will bring a huge smile to your face.

With the likes of Funeral Whore, Blood Mortized, Mordbrand,  Zombiefication, Malfeitor and Omision, Mexico’s Chaos Records is getting a really nice roster of old school death metal that rivals the likes of Dark Descent, FDA Rekotz and Pulverized Records.