Crematory

Crematory occupy a pleasant sub-division in my mind where European bands of the '90s are placed that are intriguing but not really excellent. That mental folder is larger than you would imagine due to my fondness for doom death bands of the period, many of whom did unusual things in terms of atmosphere, production values, and career trajectory. Quite a number of those doom death outfits had begun to edge away from their heavy roots by the time 1996 came round, often choosing lighter gothic or alternative pathways to dilute their sluggish extremity, in which sense Crematory confused me into thinking they were once doomy owing to their own loop from atmospheric death metal to pretty soft gothic metal/rock, a transformation completed by the time this self-titled album arrived in 1996. More reasons why these Germans get a place in the intriguing box: very cool cover artwork, putting every title track on the following album, nicely gloomy lyrics. Sadly, Crematory breaks the trend of all those things (alright, the cool artwork series only continued on Awake after this), mostly due to having entirely German lyrics and thus translating 'Illusions' to 'Illusionen'. Thus, another reason for intriguing me...

Musically, I've often found Crematory's early gothic to be very straightforward regarding songwriting and musical arrangements. To some extent, that prefigures the group's later interest in industrial sounds, though in 1996 it meant a lot of 4/4 time signatures and steady pace, as if one of the doom acts gone gothic like Paradise Lost or Tiamat had been having tired rehearsals next door. Disregarding 3 instrumentals, which run slightly shorter, Crematory totals over 5 minutes for a song, yet add in very little except the standard 3 verses and choruses, as well as some time for melodic development either at the outset or in the bridge. Some passages of lead guitar turn up, such as that in 'Ist es Wahr', though share at least equal priority with the keyboards at those moments, so the song length mainly results from a lack of speed rather than actual complexity or bulkiness. I don't mean to say that the five-piece (just one guitarist, by the way) play too slow or simply, more that the emphasis of the rhythm often includes the drums, guitar, and vocals all hitting the beat at once, so that 'Flieg mit Mir' resembles Rammstein in more than just the similarity of its handle to 'Spiel mit Mir'. The keys, on the other hand, paint much more broadly over the rest of the band and can either pick out a main theme or embellish a song with symphonic or synthy atmosphere.

Now, I've just mentioned Rammstein despite saying that Crematory sound neither really industrial nor very guitar-heavy, which may reveal just how Germanic this sounds to me. I have to admit that I'm not exactly a contemporary reference for the German rock scene in the mid-'90s, since I was learning to tie my shoelaces in England, though the little that I've heard (and also the relevant career paths of acts like Darkseed, Pyogenesis, and End Of Green, plus the Swedish Tiamat and Cemetary) point to this being popular - if at the lighter end of the spectrum - in the clubs and on the radio. As a result, the style now seems rather dated, owing to the change in tones and production values away from this very light feel (some of the keys hark back to '80s pop) and towards a more post-punk grit. As I said, I can't be certain, but surely a pleasant, well-produced album sung in German was designed to be a hit at home? In support of this theory, the vocals also enjoy a prominent position with plenty of hooks in 'Flieg mit Mir', 'Ewigkeit', and 'Die Suche', although interestingly Felix Stass retains an occasional dramatic growl and throaty semi-shout from the death metal days, alongside brooding low spoken word and cleaner singing. In my view, that's the sole vestige of extremity that could possibly stick to Crematory's fourth release.

Ultimately, what holds back my enjoyment can be attributed more to the lack of variation on the album than its overall style. The 7 songs that include lyrics have very similar structure as I've mentioned, while the instrumentals that begin and end the release, as well as the slightly fuller 'Trugbilder', utilize the same elements and only pay less attention to rhythm and repetition as they build atmosphere. Of course, that means the reverse of my reaction will be true for some listeners: those who get sucked up into the sinister romance of the album and can feel the pull of the vaguely magical keys will probably be content for the entire 45 minutes and perhaps even wish for another complete song by the end. That is the conundrum of aiming for a very specific target, and I am thus obliged to say that Crematory do hit that target, firmly and repeatedly, though without enough surprise value to make this release a classic. For steady German goths of the '90s, however, it's a real treat.

Recently I was able to find an original digipack version of this, Crematory’s self-titled fourth album. When I bought it I was expecting the good, standard gothic metal that Crematory has a habit of recording. Now that I’ve been able to let this sink in, I must say I’m surprised on a few levels as to this album.

First of all, the music here is somewhat slower than the usual Crematory stuff, such as the Believe album, making the music less catchy, at least upon first listen, and harder to digest than some of their later albums. This, coupled with the fact that Crematory is the band’s first ever album with lyrics sung entirely in the band’s native German, limits the music’s accessibility, which is in no way a bad thing although it does prevent me and my existent but limited knowledge of German from understanding the subtleties of the lyrics. Some of the songs are still on par with the band’s usual catchy gothic tunes, including Flieg Mit Mir, Ist Es Wahr and Ewigkeit.

This album’s position early in the band’s discography is evident by their relative lack of maturity in the songwriting department. That’s not necessarily to say that the songs are simplistic, far from it, but instead that many of the melodies which make this worthy of the gothic metal title are repetitive and simplistic, not to mention at times even childish and reminiscent of old video games. This is prevalent in the intros of several songs as well as in the closing instrumental track, Sehnsucht.

Fortunately for the album, from an overall point of view it’s quite enjoyable and riddled with hooks with which to remember many of the better tracks. The aforementioned Flieg Mit Mir features a chorus backed with keyboards, resulting in one of the best gothic metal tracks the band has recorded, right up there with classics such as Tears of Time and Unspoken. The keyboard melodies, when they succeed in avoiding the pitfalls of excessive repetition and general fruitiness, create an enticing atmosphere which ends up making this album quite an enjoyable one. One such example is the instrumental track, Trugbilder, which is entirely dominated by keyboards yet is composed in such a way as to make into the perfect bridge between the first and second halves of the album.

Vocalist Felix’s work alternates between light death growls and straight-up clean vocals, more often the former. His vocals are definitely a quality for this album, fitting the music almost perfectly and adding a good dose of contrast between both the clean vocals and the growls as well as between the more death metal elements and the melodic gothic parts of the album. Another one of the band’s advantages is that their line-up has remained consistent over the years as, with the exception of a couple of bassists and guitar player Lothar Först, there has been very little coming and going in this outfit, helping them to create and maintain a consistent signature sound through the years.

The German album, as Crematory is sometimes called in light of the use of said language in the lyrical department, proves that Crematory is a talented gothic metal band, releasing quality albums one after another. It might not be as good as other albums such as Believe but is nevertheless a solid effort worth acquiring by all who like gothic metal done right.