Review GRAVEYARD “Fever”

Graveyard, hailing from Gothenburg, are one of the bands that represent the musical diversity and creativity of Sweden’s west coast. Gothenburg may have a well-established home base for death metal and bands like Graveyard have developed a very different sound in the city — one that has carried them through the 2010s and beyond.

With Innocence & Decadence, the band began to shift their musical direction somewhat before announcing their breakup in 2016. The split didn’t last long, though, and Peace arrived in 2018 as the first album of Graveyard’s second chapter. The years that followed, including the pandemic, brought a darker and more restrained side to the band. Now they return with Fever.

Fever is, after all, a natural response of the body and immune system — and somehow it feels like Graveyard didn’t pick this title at random.

After the darker and gloomier atmosphere of 6, the band sounds more energetic and forceful again, almost as if the fever is burning away some of the weight accumulated over the past few years. The fuzz pedal is back in heavy rotation, and much of what Fever has to offer is driven by straight-ahead rock power. “Tongue Tied” is a good example. Pushed along by a relentless beat, Graveyard hammer the track deep into the listener’s subconscious. There’s no complicated agenda here — it’s simply about the physical force of rock’n’roll.

“A Better Cut (Note to Self)” comes out of the speakers at a slower pace, but with just as much grit. Rock and blues meet halfway, while a vintage feel runs through the album from beginning to end. Then “Year of the Horse” comes charging in with the energy of a herd of wild horses before a pounding drumbeat takes over and leads into “A Means to An End.” With its hypnotic pull, the song offers another variation on the familiar Graveyard sound while also highlighting the range of the album. It feels like stepping into a colorful fever dream, with the music relentlessly setting the eardrums in motion.

Where the drums take the lead in the previous song, the bass becomes the driving force on “Time to Tell.” Truls Mörck sets the pace on this groove-heavy rocker, building the track around a repeating main motif. The result is a steadily pounding presence that gives the song considerable intensity. That pulsing momentum continues with “Room Temperature,” reinforcing the impression that Graveyard have moved beyond their darker phase. Even the restrained “Dead Note” carries traces of that renewed energy.

Playfulness and sheer musical drive are at the heart of Fever. In a way, it feels as if Graveyard needed the experience of 6 to arrive at this record. The 2026 version of Graveyard sounds like a further evolution of the band that made its mark during the 2010s — familiar, but not stuck in the past.

And with a tour alongside Blues Pills on the horizon, there’s already plenty of reason to be curious about how these songs will translate to the stage. Fever certainly sounds like an album that was made to be played loud.