Song Premiere: Early Graves, 'Pure Hell' : All Songs Considered By many accounts, Makh Daniels was a passionate, kind man, as well as a ferocious vocalist who lived for the road. Daniels died in a van accident two years ago. His metal band Early Graves pays tribute to his memory in "Pure Hell," which swarms with exuberant rage.

Song Premiere: Early Graves, 'Pure Hell'

"Pure Hell"

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Early Graves.

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By many accounts, Early Graves' Makh Daniels was a passionate, kind man, as well as a ferocious vocalist who lived for the road. That he died in a van accident a little more than two years ago while on tour with The Funeral Pyre is just a reminder that sometimes the best die young. But to live as exuberantly as the departed did is a powerful tribute, and the members of the metal band Early Graves have continued on with Funeral Pyre vocalist John Strachan stepping in for Daniels on tour — and, now, on its third album, Red Horse. According to Strachan, "Pure Hell" is "a song dedicated to Makh. He always had that pure hell back patch. So I wrote this for him and the way he lived."

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Early Graves.

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Listen: Early Graves, 'Pure Hell'

"Pure Hell"

  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/161335348/161335368" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • from Red Horse
  • by Early Graves

Like much of Red Horse, "Pure Hell" swarms with exuberant rage. The chaotic chord voicings on the band's second record, Goner, have given way to riffs more straightforward and especially catchy, but no less destructive. This is the kind of metal band that ignores multi-prefix genre tags, rips a terse guitar solo that deconstructs itself like "Paranoid Android" on an all-night bender, and then finds its steel-toed boot in someone's face.

Red Horse is out Oct. 30 on No Sleep Records.

Correction Sept. 19, 2012

This post originally named 'Red Horse' as the second album by Early Graves. It is the third.