Metal Mondays: Graveworm

Their bodies are all connected. The band is actually just one big mass of musician.

Graveworm
Genre: Melodic/Symphonic Black Metal
Country: Italy

Graveworm has been around for quite some time but is still painfully unknown. They may not make the most original music ever, but they seamlessly blend beauty and brutality. Keyboards provide the ambience while the guitars are chugging out fast and heavy riffs. This is all background to the powerful vocals of Stefan Fiori.

Stefan is actually one of the most powerful metal vocalists I've heard. I'm not sure why this alone hasn't gotten the band some more recognition. He goes from deep growls to extremely high pitched screams multiple times each song. Just listen to the first 30 seconds of Bloodwork to see what I mean.

He wears the most unfitting things during performances though.

Graveworm was actually the most played artist in my library for quite some time (according to last.fm at least). It's not that I would choose their songs to play, it's just that I never really skipped any. Ever. I was fine with listening to every song I had by them and the listens just piled up. Currently they are my seventh most listened to band of all time (of alllll timeee), right behind Korpiklaani and Amon Amarth.

I did mention that the band has been around for quite some time (since 1992), and in that time they've changed quite a bit. Graveworm started off as a gothic metal band with some tinges of black metal. Then around Engraved in Black they fully shifted to a melodic black metal sound. Finally, a couple albums later with Collateral Defect they started to shift to a more death metal style. And on Diabolical Figures, the band became fully immersed in death metal while still keeping a bit of their black and gothic heritage. If you listen to an album that you don't particularly like but can hear some potential, just pop in another and you'll get almost a completely different sound.

Graveworm is probably best known for doing metal covers of non-metal songs. Well, it's not that they're known for that per se, it's just what every non-metalhead looks up. Their most popular (according to Youtube) is their cover of Holding Out For a Hero by Bonnie Tyler. Here is Graveworm's I Need a Hero.



Whether you like beautiful or brutal, gothic or death metal, Graveworm has you covered. For such a wide array of music they've put out and such a powerful vocalist, their lack of popularity is questionable at best. The least you can do is go and check them out.

-Zombie Viking