Maximum Metal Rating Legend

Grave Digger The Clans Will Rise Again Company: Napalm Release: 2010 Genre: Power Reviewer: EC

Clones of themselves

Grave Digger, once a crowning achievement in German heavy metal lore, has found its end. The band has released record number fifteen and it is a real stinker. You could look at the big three in general, the OTHER three German bands besides Kreator, Sodom and Destruction. Germany had Rage, Running Wild and Grave Digger, all three of the same ilk sharing stages, record labels and sounds through the 80s, 90s and, gulp, the 00s. Running Wild called it quits after thirteen releases. Peavy and the boys at Rage have released sub-par efforts the last decade and now find themselves stale. With "The Clans Will Rise Again", Grave Digger turn in a performance that finds the act dated, generic and a simple clone of what once was.

Obviously, Manni Schmidt and Thilo Herrmann found something off in the 'Digger camp. Both guitarists were fired from the band last year, Schmidt a nine year member of the band and Herrmann brand new in 2009. The band bring in the familiar one guitar sound again, opting to go back to their roots and employ a sole guitarist, this time an unfamiliar name of Axel Ritt. With ten years worth of boring and tired riffs does it even matter who is playing this stuff?

"The Clans Will Rise Again" is supposedly a sequel to the legendary "Tunes Of War" record. It will never best its predecessor and falls way short of even the worst of the last few albums. This droning pile of Grave Digger rip-offs is simply more of the same, over and over again with the calculated riffs passed down by Accept and mastered by these Germans time and time again on through the mid to late 90s. Now it is 2011 and I certainly don't want to hear these songs and this record all over again.

"Paid In Blood" is simply a rehash of something lifted right off of "Knights Of The Cross" almost ten years ago. "Valley Of Tears" is again Accept's familiar stomping grounds while "Rebels" further implicates the band as clones of themselves. Sure the first single, "Hammer Of The Scots", would make a "greatest hits" package but beyond that this is just the final straw for me. I refuse to succumb to this kind of metal forgery and at this point will just continue to play the ORIGINAL Grave Digger albums all the way through the late 90s when the band were indeed something to strive for.