Black Vanity

'Black Vanity' is a musical equivalent to late autumn times, when nature's colours have been washed away by chilling rain and wind, except for some brown and dark green ones, with shroud of grey covering everything. Seems like everything has entered sleep or dying. It seems hopeless. It feels hopeless. It does not sound hopeless, though. This is music for those autumn times, or any time one is feeling sombre.

'Black Vanity' is the third full-length album from this Swedish band, who began as a death metal one. Tiamat, Therion, Edge Of Sanity... It was nothing new for a Swedish death metal band to turn into something else. Or progress, more like, as it happened in Cemetary's case, because the evolution trajectory is clear. They had their own kind of melodiousness, partly inspired by Swedish, partly by English gothic/doom/death metal bands (mostly it's Paradise Lost, or at least on this release it is them), and that's why they stand up from the crowd.

'Bitter Seed' is Cemetary's 'As I Die' if you ask me. This rocking and groovy gothic and doomy affair is similarly upbeat being mid-paced, but upbeat in Cemetary's case, with highly adhesive melodiousness. Things slow down with 'Ebony Rain', and the song is more surprising, ending up being like a mini epic. Here, the band play with effected instruments, and loads of different woeful melodies. Beautiful acoustic guitar opens the next song, and the band also get to introduce true doom riffing in the game; the song mixes sorrowful bits with kicking, Cathedral-esque rocking heavy metaling doom of 'The Ethereal Mirror' (1993). The band were so versatile here, but alas, they lost this venturesomeness later on... Okay, it may not be totally airtight at some wilder style hopping, but damn, it is entertaining!

'Black Flowers of Passion' is a gothic horror piece in the middle. Freezing wind effect, perverted religious spoken vocals and synthesizer work with amazing acoustic guitar simply deepens the previous sentence into new level of oblivion. I'm happy with them catchy 'As I Die' style dark rockers ('Scarecrow' and especially 'Sweet Tragedy') and more doomy takes that also follow. The closer has a bit softer, smokier touch, bringing Lake Of Tears to my mind. Each song is memorable, characteristic and hardly dragging. The first half of 1990s was interesting, imaginative and illustrous era for dark metal music, and Cemetary were there with some goodies to offer, as this album demonstrates. This is Cemetary's 'Icon' (the iconic Paradise Lost album from 1993). This is timeless.

The production is a bit weird. In a way it is good: It is not clogged and it is pretty clear. It certainly is not very heavy on the low end, kind of floating in mid-ranges. The rhythm guitar is in-your-face, while the lead work in echoing (leads and solos are soulful!), and there's no shortage of various effects, creating different atmospheres throughout the album. The vocals are also varying. The main vocals of main man Mathias Lodmalm (also on guitar) are hoarse throat voice singing, even hitting the notes at times, a tad like Ville Laihiala of Sentenced. Another voice is clean and more fragile, if not that much as e.g. Anathema had, but maybe in vein of Lake Of Tears. There are many spoken voices and additional female vocals, which aren't angelic at all, but joyless in both good and bad meaning of the word. Adorned with eerie and obscure cover artwork by Dave McKean (no wonder he worked with Neil Gaiman), the lyrical content is similar and very much cryptic.

Cemetary did not manage to resonate with me after this album; the next one, 1996's 'Sundown' was very decent, but the music got more and more straight and branched in to Cemetary 1213 and more goth-rocking Sundown, making me baffled. Anyway, both of them now left in the past and Cemetary being re-activated earlier this year, I truly wish Mr. Lodmalm have found the dark spark for it all again with the new album which has been completed already. 'Black Vanity' style is more than welcome again, if you ask me, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

Pick up this for autumn to get drowned under fallen leaves...

(Originally written for ArchaicMetallurgy.com)

Cemetary are one of those weird bands to me; not because of their stylistic changes (since those weren't uncommon in the 90s to begin with), but more because this shift in style sees them reach their potential. Black Vanity shows no signs of death metal anymore, as it’s basically a refined and more consistent version of the band’s sophomore record. Having now settled for a gothic metal sound with doomy overtones, it’s clearly more accessible than the band’s past two albums, but makes up with far superior songwriting at least. Mathias Lodmalm often wrote short songs to begin with, but here they’re as rich in atmosphere as they’re downright memorable.

While Cemetary’s earlier records could have easily been compared to those of early Tiamat, I’d argue that the Tiamat comparison definitely ended at this point. Black Vanity reminds me more of Paradise Lost, but it’s more along the lines of Icon than Draconian Times; meaning that it should stick in your head rather easily, but still sounds distinctive enough and avoid the obvious commercial direction - which, let’s face it; Draconian Times clearly didn’t. Of course, vocals associated with this kind of gothic metal play a huge role and in this case, we’re dealing with a solid performance. Mathias Lodmalm avoids some of the traps other vocalists fall into, such as the monotone gothic croons of Kristian Wåhlin, or the loud, yet out-of-tune belting approach of Nick Holmes. Mathias has developed a raspy, yet coherent tone here and while you might need some time to warm up to his voice, I wouldn’t want it any other way; he sounds like someone who has become weary of life and all the crap that comes with it.

Guitars don’t stand out much from a conservative point of view, but it helps that a series of well-timed leads hum over the simplistic rhythm guitars that balanced on the edge of the doom and gothic metal spectrum; which is established by ‘’Ebony Rain’’ - which introduces a killer pitch-black lead melody between the multitude of pouring palm-muted power chords. Catchier choruses have now become part of Cemetary’s repertoire as well; like that shout-along refrain of ‘’Scarecrow’’, that features a rousing lead-melody that could have easily appeared on Icon in addition. Most importantly: Black Vanity hardly features any serious cracks to begin with. ‘’Black Flowers of Passion’’ is a near-four minute interlude of spoken vocals, wandering acoustics and warm keys…but it serves no purpose to the album by any means and ‘’Out in the Sand’’ sounds a bit too stale when compared to the surrounding songs, where Mathias Lodmalm becomes loud during those unmemorable verses and gets surprisingly quiet during that lead-driven chorus.

Two out of ten poor choices isn’t bad, of course…let alone when one isn’t even a song to begin with. I may not be a huge fan of gothic metal to begin with, but Black Vanity is definitely one of the better examples that I can think of. It helps that this album has a serious edge to it and even the more surprising songs turn out well. ‘’Hunger of the Innocent’’ alternates between some mysterious acoustic passages and explosive grooves that the doomier riffs are responsible for, where even Mathias Lodmalm gets a little louder than usual in between. ‘’Last Departure / Serpentine Parade’’ is another hard-hitter, where Mathias Lodmalm shouts his way through the crunchy doom-styled opening before the track chugs along and leads to that fuzzy chorus. Even that ominous, industrial break halfway through does it for me; conveying an oppressive atmosphere that’s rather unusual when compared to the usual moods of the album.

As time went on, Cemetary would continue to walk the road of the gothics, but unfortunately would do so with mediocre results. Black Vanity may not be flawless, but if you like your gothic/doom metal with attitude, then you can’t go wrong with here and personally, I’d argue that this makes the band’s best introduction too - although I clearly realize that plenty of folks would prefer the death metal debut.

This review was originally written for antichristmagazine.com

Following a frustrating experience in the live arena supporting Godless Beauty, Cemetary main man Mathias Lodmalm dismissed the entire band due to what he described as on‑stage incompetence. After recruiting an all new line‑up, Lodmalm returns with one of the strongest releases in the Cemetary catalogue, as well as one of the finest representations of gothic rock-inspired metal in the form of Black Vanity.

Moving further away from the origins of death metal towards the realm of dark rock/doom metal, Cemetary’s approach relies on mood altering transitions and gloomy atmospheres created by melancholic lead melodies in simplistic arrangements of rock song form, which discourages technical disruption of emotional flow. Though Cemetary subtly experiments with production techniques, atmospheric dynamics, and electronic nuances on Black Vanity, these remain songs of direct impact centered around strong hooks and choruses. The music does possess a more fluid motion than previous efforts, as these new musicians are simply better players than the guys they replace, yet the material is tight and focused in its design. Lodmalm’s voice continues to shed its deathly growl, having now developed a post-growl singing style similar to Nick Holmes of Paradise Lost during his own transition to more melodic vocals on Icon and Draconian Times. More gothic singing is utilized here which serves quite well the shadowy nature of slower material such as "Last Departure/Serpentine Parade" and "Out In Sand".

"The dust I leave behind...
A shadow you must wear
Feel the darkness in your mind
And the cold despair..."

Black Vanity is a well-balanced album. While the songs generally function within a particular formula, there exists a healthy amount of variety in terms of pace and atmospheric shade for the music to maintain a high level of interest. Songs like "Scarecrow" and "Sweet Tragedy" are joyless midnight rockers resembling what The Sisters of Mercy may sound like as a metal band. In "Ebony Rain", "The Hunger of the Innocent", and "Black Flowers of Passion" acoustic guitars, ambient keyboards, female vocals, and weeping melodies exhibit a forbidden lust for an ashen destiny. What is most remarkable about this work is its captivating dark melodies emerging within songs like despair ridden dreams, catchy but expressively sincere and immersive.