House by the Cemetary - Disturbing the Cenotaph

Angry Metal Guy

From Imperial Doom to The Passage of Existence, Monstrosity has one of the most solid death metal discographies on record.¹ And while I’ve always gravitated toward those early Corpsegrinder albums, the performance Mike Hrubovcak turned in on The Passage of Existence was brutally good. Now, when he’s not creating sick cover art or contributing to his other projects—Azure Emote, Hypoxia, or Imperial Crystalline Entombment—Hrubovcak partners with the inimitable, no-band-too-big-or-small-for-me-to-play-in, personal injury lawyer guitarist Rogga Johannson to front House by the Cemetary. Just a year and some change off the heels of HbtC’s 2024 sophomore effort, The Mortuary Hauntings, and rounded out this time by ex-The Hate Project drummer Thomas Ohlsson, House by the Cemetary is ready to stuff your holiday stocking with their third opus, Disturbing the Cenotaph. Let’s dig in and see which of Santa’s lists House by the Cemetary ends up on.

House by the Cemetary play drop-of-water-in-a-vast-ocean OSDM, so if you’re looking for something wholly original and mindblowing, you should look elsewhere. Far removed from their HM-2 abusive Rise of the Rotten debut, Disturbing the Cenotaph forgoes the fuzz, supplying a bevy of mid-paced Rogga riffs that Hot Topic kids listening to Six Feet Under or Bone Gnawer might bang their heads to (“Island of the Dead,” “Phantom Intrusions”). Foregoing scalpels, Rogga turns in a solo-less performance that bluntly forces trauma through brute-force chugs, with the occasional wade into melodic waters (“Burial Disturbance”), imparting some level of diversity. And while Rogga handles bass duties as well, there’s not a whole lot on offer that draws my attention to that instrument’s existence on Disturbing the Cenotaph. Meanwhile, Ohlsson does a decent job of keeping everything in line with a serviceable death-metal drum performance. House by the Cemetary relies almost exclusively on tropes to survive, even its influences trodding well-worn horror paths from Fulci, to Night of the Living Dead and Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Disturbing The Cenotaph by House By The Cemetary

Despite House by the Cemetary’s adherence to a strict, almost Lite Brite® death metal template, there were a couple of moments on Disturbing the Cenotaph that drew my attention. One track I gladly revisited was “Massive Cadaver Resurrection,” with its very late-era Carcass vibe filled with a nice groove and some steely melodicism that spilled over into follow-up song “Undead Apocalypse,” which seemed to use the same set of notes as its predecessor but employed them at a slower, doomier pace; the track easily evoking images of a street filled with lumbering zombies. Notwithstanding these two songs, the only ones on the album that flirt around the four-minute mark as well, for what it’s worth, there’s not a lot on Disturbing the Cenotaph that elevates House by the Cemetary out of that vast ocean of also-rans.

Disturbing the Cenotaph is plagued with many of the same flaws as the last Rogga project I reviewed, Leper Colony, which also had a very paint-by-numbers approach. There are a couple of remaining factors, however, that save Disturbing the Cenotaph, albeit tenuously, from suffering a similar fate. For one, Mike Hrubovcak is a hell of a death metal vocalist, and his discernible yet deadly growls, howls, and screams go a long way toward keeping House by the Cemetary from sinking to the bottom of the death metal sea. Second, Håkan Stuvemark’s (WOMBBATH) mix is surprisingly warm and makes Disturbing the Cenotaph a pretty easy listening experience, though, comparatively speaking, “Chopsticks” is still “Chopsticks,” even if it’s mixed with a DR of 11.

There’s nothing wrong with simple. In fact, I love me some simple, knuckle-dragging death metal if, even in its simplicity, it can move me. My problem with Disturbing the Cenotaph, despite its great vocals and warm production, is that it feels lifeless and void of any real power. I’m comforted in knowing I can get a quality fix of Hrubovcak’s vocals by revisiting Monstrosity or Hypoxia, and of Rogga’s riffs, by way of Ribspreader or Paganizer. As it stands, I might throw “Massive Cadaver Resurrection” on a 2025 playlist, but beyond that, I will not be returning to Disturbing the Cenotaph beyond this review’s final period.

Rating: 2.0/5.0
DR: 11 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Pulverised Records
Website: Bandcamp
Releases Worldwide: December 12, 2025

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