ALBUM REVIEW: LIBERATION FRONT BY TO THE GRAVE
Reviewed by Cecilia Pattison-Levi
Release date: 2 October 2026
Australia’s most uncompromising band, To The Grave, is the world’s preeminent vegan deathcore group. Their album ‘Liberation Front’ has that militant philosophical core thought process underpinning it as it wraps its views of environmental destruction and human cruelty against animals and all other living creatures in deathcore. It rages against the machine!
The synths and distorted bassline bring in the opening of ‘Meat The Humans’ as the dark vocal fry and open machine gun drumming hits. Musically, it’s dark and aggressive, and the lyricism plays on words that highlight the profound, multi-million-year relationship between human evolution and meat consumption. Instead of the prayer, ‘Hail Mary’, the following track imagery is around ‘Nail Mary’, which has multiple meanings, but the commandment, “Thou shall not kill”, is pretty clear. Then, ‘Torture Porn’, with its “serial murderer” declaration to most of the human race who eat meat or hurt the environment, has huge guitars and such aggressive passages of frantic heavy metal.
To The Grave and this album, ‘Liberation Front’, are a statement of intent, with tracks of aggressive riffage, drum beat blasts and dark vocals so bass that you have to listen hard. “It was a perfect day and all I wanted to do was cut you up” underscores ‘Eyestalk Ablations’. The next track, ‘Life Among The Septics’, has that sound I think poison would make as it drips with “people deserve to die”, as well as the clever play on words humour. The track ‘Calf Slicer’ is probably self-explanatory, and the wail at the start and through the track says it all. It makes you feel guilty that you bought that steak at Woolworths as “it’s a terrible thing”.
The track ‘Limb From Lamb’ had me thinking about Lisa Simpson and her pet lamb as the expressions of “control” and “suffering” are central. This band takes no prisoners and aren’t sorry about their views as ‘You Know The Drill’. It is here that a few seconds of synths give some relief from the sonic assault. Then, the track just attacks with an epic guitar solo as you are told to “watch your stride”! ‘Terrorfire’ is probably a good term to describe this musical experience: there is a rumbling distortion with acoustic melody as spoken lyrics ask us to consider where our food comes from. It’s a condemnation of our cruelty to animals, especially pigs. “We must be the devil to animals” as the heavy deathlike dirge cuts in and cuts off the ideas. The track ends in an acoustic fade out.
That ‘The World Is A Slaughterhouse’ is self-evident and “sad”, just watch the news and consider the 60 active armed conflicts happening globally as I sit and write this review. Humans are the devil to humans, let alone any other creatures. The “liberation front” is an idea worth fighting for, and musically, the dark, heavy “killing floor” of bass and drums is lightened by the guitar riffs. It all ends in a colossal scream.
If you like crushing deathcore, drum beat blasts and huge guitar riffage with a philosophical point to make, then ‘Liberation Front’ is worth checking out. It’s heavy and hard! This album will make you question your choices.
