Grand Cadaver – The Rot Beneath (EP)
Release Date: 15th August 2025
Label: Majestic Mountain Records
Bandcamp
Genre: Swedish Death Metal, Death Metal.
FFO: Bloodbath, Dark Tranquillity, Entombed, Lik, At The Gates, The Halo Effect.
Review By: Rick Farley
“When you look at the state of the world today, it’s difficult not to feel despair. We see madness, death, war, corruption, and polarisation. And it makes you think, what are we if not the cause of the problem, what are we but The Rot Beneath? This is the anthem to mankind’s demise.”
Grand Cadaver combines the love of old-school; HM-2 soaked Swedish death metal and the uniting of some of metal’s most seasoned veterans into one of the most exciting old school supergroups we’ve heard in quite some time. Silly term, supergroup I know, but having a vocalist like Mikael Stanne (Dark Tranquillity, The Halo Effect), drummer Daniel Liljekvist (ex-Katatonia, Disrupted, Vorder), guitarist Stefan Lagergren (The Grifted, ex Taimat), guitarist Alex Stjernfeldt (Novarupta, CHILD, and bassist Christian Jansson (Pagandom, Dark Tranquillity) surely puts the listener at ease that this will be pretty damn awesome. Spoiler alert, despite The Rot Beneath being only an EP, it is. Thankfully, we have two previous full lengths to sink our teeth into in 2021’s Into the Maw of Death and 2023’s Deities of Deathlike Sleep, otherwise this would truly be a tease. Both albums jammed packed with punishing riffs, chainsaw guitars and doomy-tinged atmosphere.
The Rot Beneath consists of four songs, sitting at a runtime of fifteen and a half minutes. Not exactly a ton of music to review, but Grand Cadaver makes a significant impact with a small amount of time. Track opener Blood Red Banner instantly explodes into a cacophony of thrashy downbeats, Stanne’s legendary acidic growls and buzz sawing guitar tones. The track shifts between rapidly beating you and opening up the grooves adding a swaggered stomp to your weakening bones, only to haze up the soundscape with thick, haunting murkiness that ends the track with a doomy atmosphere. The Rot Beneath follows, bringing an anthemic like hookiness that feels like it will be a live show favourite. Jagged riffs, sing along style vocals and tons of headbanging. The kinetic energy returns on track three, The Endless Dead. Heavy rapid pace, memorable riffs and melodic old school class makes this track a dynamic example of how old can be new again in the right hands. Absolute banger. Darkened Apathy is the final track and the longest at nearly five minutes. Its doomy chug kicks things off slower paced, but worry not, the flesh ripping commences into a furious clog of tremolo picked chainsaw death metal. The large amount of thick atmosphere in this track shifting itself back and forth between ferocious and ominous sounds colossal.
I don’t typically like to review EP’s, they’re hard to score, yet somehow The Rot Beneath made it to my inbox without me knowing it wasn’t a full length album. So much for me being up with the times, huh. Regardless, Grand Cadaver is too good of a band to ignore anything they put out. This is all kinds of awesome, even at only four songs, and you will be hard-pressed to find better old school Swedish death metal released this year.
(3.5 / 5)
