Memorial

I can't believe it's 2015 and I'm STILL sitting here listening to Lilitu. I remember seeing these guys open for Opeth in Atlanta in 2003, on Opeth's A Fair Judgement tour with Lacuna Coil. That was an amazing show.

Lilitu are from Rome, GA and based themselves out of Atlanta. I suppose this was the reason they were picked to open that fateful show. They played the majority of this album, Memorial, and their cover of W.A.S.P's Sleeping In The Fire (fucking super sweet by the way). I picked up a copy from the merch table on my way out and blasted this CD for 12 years and going. It's seriously THAT good. The band self produced this album and got the best sound they possibly could, the bass is audible and rips, the guitars and vocals are mixed just right so that one doesn't drown out the other, however the drum sound is a tad rough but nothing to really whine about.

Being that this was/is such a fantastic, self produced album, Lilitu got quite a lot of attention at this time. The "delivery" album was also quite good, but it failed to have the grit and (for lack of a better term) true vibe of Memorial. The songs on the follow up are great, but they leave you very quickly. The songs on Memorial just STICK with you, getting stuck in your head and giving you a very rocking soundtrack for life. I suppose this was an instance of the stars aligning and the masterpiece known as Memorial was shat out.

The songs and composition on Memorial are unbelievably top notch. Opener "I Can Not Be Saved" is just beautiful, starting with acoustic guitar and segueing into an unbelievably heavy main song. It doesn't let up from there. There are quite a few acoustic/slow sections in most every song, Unhallowed Be Thy Shame being the only exception that comes to mind. It's very hard not to do a track by track review of this album. Every song is distinct and amazing in it's own right. Amazing being that an unknown band from the States (the SOUTH no less) was cranking out melodic death better than most of the old guard and all of the new guys out today. "This Is Not An Exit" comes at you with a slightly Maiden inspired opening riff. It switches from melancholy to aggressive very quickly, thus making it a very interesting listen. I will say you can't quite understand H. Derek Bonner's growls without a lyric sheet, but it's nothing to really whine about. The main thing about this album is EMOTION. Every song is filled to the brim with pain, suffering, and an overall sense of dread. It is rather short at 6 full songs and an outro that is supremely creepy (Even though it's the credits music from the movie "Love Story"). However within those 6 full songs you're getting everything you've ever wanted from a melodic death metal album, and then some.

I suppose the main thing to take away is that this is an amazing album from what could the be most unknown, underrated band in history. It truly is a memorial, so to speak, for a type of metal that has sadly disappeared. A very fitting memorial indeed.

I have a burned version of this album and I must say this is some of the best gothic metal I've ever heard. It sure beats the shit out of Moonspell.

I Cannot Be Saved, a ten minute epic, begins the album. That's right, this is the FIRST song. Not many bands would have the balls to put a song of that length as the first song. Although it's quite long, it never gets boring. It's chock-full of crunchy guitars, killer pounding drumwork, alternations of gloomy gothic vocals with robotic shrieks, and female operatic vocals in the background. Awesome stuff.

Unhallowed Be Thy Shame consists of more crunchy, dark guitars initially and then proceeds to depressive piano playing and vocals that are reminiscent of Peter Steele from Type O Negative. The chorus consists of two parts---the first consisting of robotic shrieking and the second chorus consisting of high-pitched gothic vocals. The crunchy guitars then chime again. Holy shit, their guitar tone is absolutely killer.

I'm missing track 3, so I'll go right to track 4, Unwill. This particular song is very depressing and the vocalist just seems like he's wrenching out every ounce of emotion from his heart. You can tell he's tortured. A good thing about this song is that the strings and keyboards perfectly complement the main melody.

Later, the vocalist has a desperatespoken-word interlude. So dramatic. The spoken words resurface later in the song, until the song climaxes in a torrent of razor-sharp guitars, tortured robotic shrieks, and epic orchestrations.

Autumn Leaves is a very subtle ballad that reminds me of something off of Agalloch's The Mantle . The vocalist goes sharp sometimes in this song, but maybe it's for a certain effect. It's a little bothersome.Once again, there is a nice utilization of strings as well.

Dead Things I've Tried to Hide has some really cool keyboard sounds. It almost sounds like a saxophone at times. It might be a woodwind instrument. At about the 5 minute mark, there's some epic guitar playing with a furious interlude accentuated with Dream Theaterish keyboards and the usual shrieks, black metal yells, and gothic vocals. Later, it's just some ambient strings until the chorus is reprised again. Finally, the song closes with a series of trudging, ethereal guitar riffs.

The last song is the title track and it's mainly just an outro that consists of very sanguine piano-playing accentuated by reverb. This band deserves much more recognition than they are getting. They are very talented, emotional and much better than some of the other gothic metal I've heard. Well worth checking out.