Artist: Grave Robber 
   Title: Be Afraid
   Label: Retroactive Records

It started way before Kiss and Alice but has continued on through the anoles of time as each generation hails their own masked band to follow and now a new breed of Zombie Rock stars are about to be unleashed with Grave Robber.  With band member names Wretched on (get this) vokills and shovel, Dr Cadaver doom tubs/vokills, Nameless guitar/vokills and completing this motley crew Maggot on bass and you guessed it vokills.  The band are about to put their own spin on the whole Christian Metal genre with their macabre Gothic Hard Rock with their album ‘Be Afraid’.

The album opens up with the intro ‘The Exorcist’ before the album gets underway proper with ‘Skeletons’.  This is where artistry and the macabre mix, with just a sprinkling of metal guitar, the bands makeup on stage may make up the stage show but in the studio these boys sure can rock.  Hinting at touches of Danzig and The Misfits and good guitar fuelled Hard Rock, the band take their message to the dark masses with a vengeance. 

With no time to pause it's straight into the anthemic ‘Burn Witch Burn’, as guitarist Nameless wakens the dead with a dynamic fret burning display, whilst Maggot and Dr Cadaver keep this pressure cooker track going with a boisterous rhythm section.

Without any delay it's more of the horror slick filled rock with ‘Bloodbath’ and the monstrous tones of ‘Rigor Mortis’.  This is guitar fuelled hard rock with a touch of the theatrics at its best.

If any of you can remember a British Glam Band called Wrathchild then you remember the sort of material they were punching out in the 80’s, well Grave Robber’s 'Wretched' has the same vocal style as their frontman Rocky Shades.

This tongue in cheek Goth Zombie quartet keep the pace of the album at full speed as they continue with ‘Buried Alive’ and ‘Screams Of The Voiceless’, both very having that Metal anthem feel out them.  Whatever their stage persona’s are they certainly can play and with their somewhat diverse Christian message, the band will certainly be making the mark not just on the Christian Rock scene, but on the more mainstream rock scene too.

The album continues its dark and bloody path with the tub thumping instrumental ‘Golgotha’, which acts nicely as the intro into the chanting of ‘Reanimator’.  Another huge rhythm section by Maggot and Dr Cadaver provide the foundation for the tuned down guitars of Nameless and the dark vokills of Wretched.

The Misfits/Danzig vibe is carried on throughout the album but is never more so than on the likes of ‘Schizofiend’ and the excellent explosive tones of ‘Dark Angel’, a track that goes at breakneck speed from beginning to end.

Whereas ‘I Wanna Kill You Over And Over Again’ is straight out of 'The Rocky Horror Show’, you can just imagine Riff Raff singing along to this one.  'I Zombie’ on the other hand has a quick 70’s punk riff running though it that is right out of The Misfits catalogue.

It's back to the more anthemic dark rock vibe with ‘Army Of The Dead’, which would normally be the final track but there is one bonus track as ‘Rigor Mortis’ is given the remix treatment by Angel of Team Cybergeist and Dope fame.  This dance club mix will go down well with the Cyber Goth brigade and rounds off what is a quite unusual approach by a Christian Rock band and for that fact alone the band will surely make their statement more available than the other bands on the Retroactive label.  So BE AFRAID, be very afraid, you have been warned!

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