Premiere: Grava – Mangled
The sound of two trains colliding
Tragedy happens every day all around us. It’s a wonder how we’re able to make it through a single 24-hours, let alone weeks, months, years, and a lifetime. There is danger around every corner. You can try to live right, be careful, be a good person, and then WHAM a train smacks into you, leaving nothing but a horrific sound and a disfigured mess. Now what if that horrible tragedy had a soundtrack?
Faroese/Danish trio Grava’s new song “Mangled” lives up to its name as a twisted, malformed mess of anguished vocals and an unforgiving low-end that leaves you a pile of rubble. While many others in the genre tend to have a more laid-back style of what can kindly be described as drudgery, Grava pound your body into submission of a story and a purpose. Violent and raw, the band creates a suffocating atmosphere that can only be replicated with tons of burning steel crashing down upon you.
The band says:
“Mangled” is a song from our second album, “The Great White Nothing”. After we released our debut album, “Weight of a God”, we had a bunch of scattered ideas that went in all kinds of directions. This one had an interesting feel to it. We felt that there was something heavy and violent about it, something like iron and flesh meshing together and sparks flying. It all came together when we stumbled upon an old account of a train accident that happened in 1897 not far from Copenhagen at a small place called Gentofte.
The song portrays the hellish scenes that took place when a fast moving train plunged straight into a small passenger train as it was taking in passengers at the station. What was ordinarily a small idyllic train station on the outskirts of Copenhagen had in a matter of seconds been transformed into an infernal scene of black smoke, fire and tormented cries emerging from an enormous pile of twisted steel and burning wood. The accident was widely reported by journalists at the time, and there are many first hand accounts of what happened. The scenes that are described are harrowing to read but they are also full of human moments, people working tirelessly through the night, using every ounce of their strength to pull others out of the rubble, people keeping a straight face through the horror, refusing to give up hope.
There was one account of a man wandering aimlessly around the scene, not knowing where he was or if he was even alive. Another one was suffering greatly from a shattered chest but nonetheless sharply refused any help from onlookers. He knew he was beyond saving and simply asked them to help those who had a chance to survive. It’s all there in the accounts and the whole atmosphere slowly bled into the music as we were writing it. Despite the horrors, not many people know of the story today.
Watch your speed, Casey Jones, and check it out:
The Great White Nothing is out on September 27th, 2024 via Aesthetic Death, Vinytroll Records, and Evil Noise. Listen to more songs on Grava’s Bandcamp and like them on Facebook and Instagram.
