Grave Digger’s Fields Of Blood: German metal warhorses go the full Braveheart

Metal veterans Grave Digger focus on Scottish history on new album Fields Of Blood

(Image: © Napalm)

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Twenty albums in 40 years is remarkable enough, even before you factor in an eight-year hiatus, but good old Grave Digger have long since come to embody the hoary stereotype of ruthless German efficiency. Their work rate is phenomenal, but the hit rate varies. However, news that they’ve returned their focus to Scottish history is cause for celebration; the Ruhr Valley stalwarts are at their best when documenting Highland clan skirmishes, and like 1996’s Tunes Of War and 2010’s The Clans Will Rise Again, Fields Of Blood urges the band to their most rousing, impassioned, anthemic power metal, a set of gleaming, symphonic compositions easily besting the rickety rough’n’tumble of previous recent offerings.

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Chris Chantler

Chris has been writing about heavy metal since 2000, specialising in true/cult/epic/power/trad/NWOBHM and doom metal at now-defunct extreme music magazine Terrorizer. Since joining the Metal Hammer famileh in 2010 he developed a parallel career in kids' TV, winning a Writer's Guild of Great Britain Award for BBC1 series Little Howard's Big Question as well as writing episodes of Danger Mouse, Horrible Histories, Dennis & Gnasher Unleashed and The Furchester Hotel. His hobbies include drumming (slowly), exploring ancient woodland and watching ancient sitcoms.