Orlando metal trio Royal Graves return with powerful new EP, 'Amen'

After solidifying their look and sound as an instru-metal wrecking crew with 2021’s Raw Demos LP, heavy Orlando trio Royal Graves are finally back with a new EP, Amen. Unlike Raw Demos, their latest is a properly mixed and mastered work. But beyond the improved production value, the new songs themselves are a remarkable leap for the band.

On Amen, Royal Graves’ sludgy post-metal storm rages with an altogether new level of focus and finesse. First, the sonics are richer and more enveloping. Furthermore, the tighter texturizing highlights their deepening melodic dimension, which is more detailed, journeying and salient than ever. This is a band whose ambition now lies beyond pure tonnage.


Don’t worry, headbangers. Royal Graves are still heavy as 10 hells with titanic riffs and mammoth steps. They’re just growing into something more now.

Royal Graves reemerge here as a complex, Homeric beast closer to bands like Pelican, whose instrumentally narrative style paints entire worlds without words. This evolution is especially apt since Amen was birthed during extraordinary life struggles that gave guitarist Mark Linder so much to express that he even added some vocals to their usually all-instrumental tapestry.

Most of Amen was written while Linder was living in a hospice facility providing round-the-clock care for his father James. When James rested, Linder wrote and played on headphones, then sent those .wav files for drummer Michael Henderson’s input. Cancer ultimately took his father at the end of that year, and Amen is the phoenix that arose from Linder’s personal crucible. The emotional range of that experience — the heaviness, the toil, the deliverance — is all here in these songs.

With the sweep and grandeur to match their sonic mass, Amen is Royal Graves’ most crafted and widescreen work to date, and it cements them as one of Orlando’s premiere post-metal acts. Amen now streams everywhere and atop TLU's Spotify Playlist.


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