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It seems To The Grave have popped up out of nowhere to become one of the most hyped acts in Australia’s re-emerging deathcore scene.
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In actuality, the Sydney-siders have been hustling amongst the underground New South Wales death metal scene for close to a decade, gradually building fans as they worked tirelessly amongst the gig scene.
Now on album number three Director’s Cut, To The Grave seem to finally be attaining the attention that they have worked towards for so long. Having earned themselves a spot on the Unique Leader Records roster, as well as scoring a slew of festival appearances at the most recent editions of CVLT FEST and Good Things Festival, things are really looking up for the deathcore outfit, who at this point in time mark themselves as one of Australia’s most talked about upstarts.
“It’s a bit of a spin out in all honesty,” remarks the group’s lead vocalist Dane Evans, “just taking a step back and looking at how far everything is progressing. It feels crazy to be in a band that is starting to have success.”
“To put it in perspective, we’d always wanted to go over to Europe and we’d have offers in the past that made it look like the whole thing was just going to be a fucking nightmare. So to actually be able to get there and do a tour was like a dream in all honesty.”
“It’s all just been a ‘blink and you miss it’ type of situation in terms of how quickly everything has progressed.”
But where has this burst in popularity come from? Sure, deathcore has seen a re-emergence over the last few years and the scene is potentially the most viable it has ever been, but what’s separating To The Grave from the rest?
Well, after seeing their blistering set at CVLT FEST, I can guarantee that there was one thing that had everyone talking, Evans’ incredible vocal range. With a sinister multi-toned guttural that one-up’s the likes of Mark Poida, Trevor Strnad or any other revered death metal vocalist, Evans marks himself as a standout amongst the deathcore community, so much so that some have even questioned the use of vocal enhancements.
It’s a bit of a spin out in all honesty, just taking a step back and looking at how far everything is progressing. It feels crazy to be in a band that is starting to have success.
[ Dane Evans – To The Grave ]
“I actually get those questions a lot,” he states, “I know a lot of vocalists do use those kinds of tools and then you see them live and they don’t hit the pig squeals the same. Luckily I’ve had a few live videos of me pop up online which has kind of silenced those questions. It’s like people will claim that we can’t replicate it live so we’re like lets play it, film it and then fucking get on with it.”
With the release of Director’s Cut, To The Grave are eagerly setting up a national headline run in support of the release, but until then Evans’ is bustling with excitement waiting for fans to hear it, with Director’s Cut marking itself as the groups most ambitious and experimental release to date.
“A lot of really interesting things came to be just by the boys writing independently, because then we’d get together and chop and change the layers, bring some subdued riffs to the front and just completely rework the songs until they evolved into what they are.”
“But it also created so many new ideas. It was almost as if the second we sent the album off we were like, ‘oh what if we did this instead.’ So we ended up coming out of the recording process with all these new ideas for the next release. Which is really cool, because in all honesty man, we literally burnt ourselves out trying to write the coolest fucking album possible. And it is really cool, we’re really proud of it and of all the blood, sweat and tears that we poured into it, but we were also happy to be finished with it.”
“Then as soon as the time was up for being creative, we all got that spark again and straight away went and wrote a bunch of new shit, just to scratch that itch.”
So does that mean fans may be able to expect even more new material from To The Grave this year?
“Yeah man,” he laughs, “It was almost like we made this record, hit a bunch of goals and now the goalposts have moved immediately. So now it’s like, we need to try and go do that shit.”
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