Grand Cadaver – The Rot Beneath

30/08/2025

The Swedes love their death metal. Even though the old guard from the first generation of death metal in the late eighties and early nineties have often moved on to new territories in their main band, they do like to revisit it from time to time. Think for instance of Bloodbath.

Grand Cadaver fits in that vein a bit, consisting of an impressive array of old school veterans. On vocals we find Mikael Stanne, the ever cheerful frontman of Dark Tranquillity, one of melodeath’s godfathers together with In Flames and At The Gates. He is joined on bass by his band mate Christian Jansson with former Katatonia skinbasher Daniel Liljekvist on drums and axe wielders Alex Stjernfelder and even Stefan Lagerman from early Tiamat and Treblinka. So essentially as old school as it’s going to get.

Originally this band was formed during the 2020 pandemic, releasing their first EP ‘Madness Comes’ a year later, followed by the debut full length ‘Deities of Deathlike Sleep’ in 2023. ‘The Rot Beneath’ now is another short four track EP.

The aim here is, of course, not to reinvent the wheel. This is five guys having fun with a musical style they started out in when they were just wee lads and were influenced by the likes of Dismember and Entombed. So expect a lot of buzzsaw guitars, the occasional, ominous, creeping crawl, a touch of melody and Stanne’s unmistakable growl.