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Cemetery: Enter the gate
02/06/14 || Kunal Choksi
Cemetery from Germany, mind you, released some killer Death-inspired music before disappearing into oblivion. Memento Mori label from Spain unearthed this classic piece of Death Metal music for us deprived peeps, and kids and old balding men around the world are celebrating ever since. Rarely you’ll find something replicated that is worthy of notice and thank god it isn’t your Swedish Death Metal music again. This is Death circa “Leprosy” with progressive and melodic elements, that’s what it sounds like I mean. While bands like Morgoth went in a different direction, this is something that is more traditional with emphasis on song structuring and coherency than anything else. This is something that even Death would be proud of in an alternate life.
“Enter the Gate” is where it’s at. Right from the first tunes, you know the music is genuine. It really is – it’s from 1993 and has never been released due to some label going bankrupt. It’s over 60 minutes of music, that’s how long this ‘demo’ is. The vocals are in the style of Chuck Schuldiner in his early days and so is the music. But seamlessly almost, the band has taken the sound forward, not in a groundbreaking manner as much as in a logical manner. I can live with that. At least the band is trying to do something different with the influences it has imbibed.
The artwork is fantastic and that’s how it was back in the day. It’s worthy of notice because had this release been put out, Cemetery from Germany would probably have been spoken of in the same breath as Torchure, Fleshcrawl, Morgoth and Atrocity. Although somewhat less original in comparison to these bands, it’s still good enough in terms of musicianship and quality to be acknowledged as such. The other disc has the earlier demo titled “Cemetery” plus an unreleased EP called “At Dark Places” on it. It’s expectedly more straightforward but still kicks ass if you’re into Death especially around the “Scream Bloody Gore” period. Or “Leprosy” since only Morgoth and perhaps Gorguts did justice to the very early Death sound. This is as competent as it gets though and fans of old school Death Metal are in tears.
A very solid and worthy re-issue of classic Cemetery material is what this is and perhaps there is indeed some justice in this world albeit a delayed one (only two decades late). But it’s better late than never to appreciate the genuine classic quality of Death Metal when there was still something special about it and this release captures both the starting stage as well as the progressive one, of a band that was destined for greatness but something terrible happened. This will well worth your time and money, a double disc compiling all the material by this German band from 1991-1993 after which the band changed its name to Aeons End but that is another story.
- Information
- Released: 2014
- Label: Memento Mori
- Website: www.memento-mori.es
- Band
- Dani Zizek: guitars, vocals
- Roland Weihmayer: guitars
- Bobby Mayer: bass
- Michael Bolz: drums, backing vocals
- Tracklist
- Disc 1
- 01. The Different
- 02. Pits of Hell
- 03. Trapped in the Out
- 04. Cremation
- 05. Beyond the Wall of Sleep
- 06. Wings of Hate
- 07. At Dark Places
- 08. At Dark Places
- Disc 2
- 01. The Perception
- 02. Something Evil
- 03. The Dying
- 04. (Under the) Cemetery
- 05. My Burial
- 06. At Dark Places
- 07. Dungeon of Dreams
