Graveyard

Lights Out (Nuclear Blast)

Graveyard’s third slab bristles with all the burly muscle its North American adoptees have come to expect from these Nordic metal longhairs. The Swedish fourpiece clearly enjoys dropping acid rock in its black-light burrow, which, when combined with a propensity for vintage tones and Joakim Nilsson’s growing Chris Cornell resemblance, produces a work of surprising warmth and soul. “Endless Night” and “An Industry of Murder” thunder, but “Hard Times Lovin'” and “Slow Motion Countdown” flow like lava. Might meets melody, and they make sweet Seventies love. Smell the denim. (Graveyard digs deep at Emo’s East on Thursday, Feb. 21.) ***.5

This article appears in February 8 • 2013.

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Michael Toland started writing about music in 1988 on the Gulf Coast, moved to Austin in early 1991, and has inflicted bylines upon the corporeal and digital pages of Pop Culture Press, The Big Takeover, Blurt, Amplifier, Austin.citysearch, the Austin American Statesman, Goldmine, Sleazegrinder, Rock & Roll Globe, High Bias, FHT Music Notes, and, since 2011, The Austin Chronicle.