UMUR "Hating Life" is the 4th full-length studio album by Swedish death metal act Grave. The album was released through Century Media Records in March 1996. "Hating Life" is the first release not to feature lead vocalist/bassist Jörgen Sandström. I read an interview with drummer Jens Paulsson back in the mid-nineties where he described the situation. According to him, Sandström had approached Jens Paulsson and guitarist Ola Lindgren, telling them that he would leave Grave because he had lost interest in playing music. A few weeks later it was announced that he was the new bassist in Entombed though, which didn´t exactly suit the two remaining members well. What initially was an amicable split, became a bitter one instead (they felt betrayed). Paulsson and Lindgren opted to continue as a two-piece though with Paulsson taking care of the drumming and Lindgren playing guitars, bass and singing.

On "Soulless (1994)", Grave had added quite a few groove elements to their original old school Swedish death metal sound. On "Hating Life" that trend continues. This time around actually to a point where I´m in doubt if I should call this a groovy death metal album or a groove metal album with death metal elements. The fact that Ola Lindgren´s aggressive shouting vocal style isn´t really growling also points away from death metal. The music is still aggressive and at times brutal, but it´s the mean groovy riffs and the aggressive shouting vocals that are in focus.

...unfortunately "Hating Life" becomes terribly one-dimensional after only a few tracks, and while that isn´t surprising keeping the rather one-dimensional nature of most of the preceeding releases by the band in mind, "Hating Life" does take the prize as the most one-dimensional album the band had released up until then. And that´s even though Grave try out new ideas to spice up their music, but it doesn´t help much, when it´s the basis, the very core, of the music that lacks variation. Taken track by track "Hating Life" is actually a pretty entertaining release but when a 32:58 minutes long album seems like it lasts forever, something isn´t right. A 2.5 - 3 star (55%) rating is warranted. I much prefer the way they incorporated the groove element on "Soulless (1994)".