Don’t Miss It: Gravewurm, Swan Song of Jim Sadist (RIP)

Hi again MetalSucks reader! Here in the first days of 2016, let’s continue to spotlight a few 2015 albums that may have been crowded off your radar. Some risked a greater chance of eluding your attention via their arrival during a highly-distracting season — and at the time when we’re looking back at the year’s best, then looking forward to vacation days, shopping, and family snuggling. Others maybe got stuck in line behind anticipated releases by our most trusted bands. Best case scenario, you’ve been jamming all of them for weeks. If not, don’t miss ’em now!

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In an interview about 20 years ago, Blackie Lawless of WASP explained the absence of longtime guitarist Chris Holmes on the band’s newest record. He sounded magnanimous as he stated that Holmes’ vibe didn’t fit with WASP at that moment — probably the 1995 Still Not Black Enough album — for the guitarist was at that time deep into blues music. Even in print, Lawless’ acceptance was palpable as he explained that every guitarist goes through a phase in which blues music is everything. It passes. He’d be back soon enough, Lawless intimated.

Perhaps the equivalent to the “heavy metal guy gets religiously into blues for a decade” in the world of extreme metal is when an open-minded fan finds him-/herself relating only to a similarly narrow, singular, dark, violent, and simple idiom of music: old-school black metal. If that’s you here in 2016, well, first off, congrats on your advancing age and deathgrip on your sense of loss. Second, your deep-dive may never pass thanks to the devotion of innumerable new bands to the sound pioneered by Hellhammer and Bathory. Witness Gravewurm’s new album Doomed To Eternity, a messy, mean BM gem that also happens to be the final work of Jim “Jim Sadist” Konya. The drummer died a month after having suffered a stroke in September, which we might guess was right after Doomed was created. Doesn’t get more blues than that. RIP Jim Sadist.

Gravewurm’s Doomed To Eternity came out on Christmas day via Hells Headbangers. Get it here and here.