As I’ve learned in recent weeks, there is a lot of music that kind of goes under the radar and you only discover it or it only gets recommended to you much later. I’ve made a point to make sure that a document these in my “Lost Releases” section. So it almost happened again, I almost missed one of the best releases of 2016 this time round.

I give to you, Spinebreaker, death metal 5-piece from San Jose, California. They’ve been around since 2013 and have released an EP and a single before their full-length this year titled Ice Grave through Creator-Destructor Records.

I hammer on about bands these days trying to be too technical and yes, I know, but fuck man, that shit is an epidemic and luckily there are still bands around who understand that death metal or old school death metal is all about the riffs and  Spinebreaker’s – Ice Grave is exactly that!

After an intro track that is eerie as all fuck, that guitar kicks in and it’s like Dismember worship from the get go with some of the coolest riffs available in one place. The dynamic yet simplistic riffage along with the punchy drums make one of the biggest sounds I’ve heard from a death metal band in a while, which they have made their own.  Keeping it simple and letting the groove do the work with some incredible vocal work to complete one of the best albums of 2016 without a shadow of a doubt. To be honest I’ve had this album on repeat this entire week.

Spinebreaker – Ice Grave is an instant classic and is like a gateway back to a time where this would have been lauded with the likes of Entombed, Dismember, Autopsy, Carcass and the like, which says a lot about the over all composition of the release. I would highly recommend everyone get their hands on a copy, I know I will, I ordered a long sleeve lately and I can’t wait to get my hands on it.