For the last 20 plus years, MASSGRAV has been a constant of the Swedish extreme music scene. Rooted in the scandinavian hardcore tradition of the 80s and early 90s, the band has moved forward to stake out their very own path, brandishing their weaponized blend of stop and go faster-than-fuck hardcore punk mixed with meat and potatoes rock n’ roll.

The last couple of decades have seen the band play venues from Russia in the east to the Americas in the west and share split releases with bands like Yacopsaë, Diskonto, Blood I bleed and Widespread Bloodshed. The band has released a handful of albums and several handfuls of EPs. 

Following years of severe drummer problems, with several band members being rendered incapable of ever playing drums again from the sheer physical abuse of drumming for MASSGRAV, the line-up stabilized with the addition of current drummer Fenok in 2010. From that point, the band has only gotten faster, though without ever turning into grindcore. In 2018, Jesper Liveröd added a second guitar to the lineup to further increase the intensity and aggression, this release being the first one he has contributed to.

When the pandemic paralyzed the world, MASSGRAV decided that social distancing did not apply to the members of the band and continued working on what turned into SLOWLY WE ROCK. Recorded by Robert Pehrsson in Studio Humbucker and mastered by Dan Randall of Mammoth Sound, the album forms a logical continuation of the route the band has been on since the release of Still the Kings in 2012. Albeit with a much fuller sound and a bit more musical variation, the core of MASSGRAV will always be full tilt, ferocious scandi thrash, and the lyrics will always deal with problems like bosses, right wing politicians, cops, rich people and the so called “scene”.