The Early Years - Crematory

Transmigration - Crematory

Crematory's debut album is a wholly unimpressive offering of gothic death metal, but also an inoffensive one. The emphasis is on atmosphere, but the bland and overly prominent keyboards spoil this, and rob the songs of any real emotional connection. Along with the mechanical guitars and clinical production sound, this ends up sounding like a slow and dull death metal album rather than a significant work of death-doom metal. Occasionally the songs throw out some nice surprises, which I can't help feel are only impressive by comparison to the mediocre content elsewhere, but deviations such as the pleasant guitar riff in 'Reincarnation' and launch into a squealy, fast solo section ...

Transmigration - Crematory

Crematory's debut album is a wholly unimpressive offering of gothic death metal, but also an inoffensive one. The emphasis is on atmosphere, but the bland and overly prominent keyboards spoil this, and rob the songs of any real emotional connection. Along with the mechanical guitars and clinical production sound, this ends up sounding like a slow and dull death metal album rather than a significant work of death-doom metal. Occasionally the songs throw out some nice surprises, which I can't help feel are only impressive by comparison to the mediocre content elsewhere, but deviations such as the pleasant guitar riff in 'Reincarnation' and launch into a squealy, fast solo section ...

Revolution - Crematory

Their comeback album after a brief disbanding, Crematory s Revolution once again sees the band moving forwards instead of back, even if the increased focus on electronic elements to supplement their industrial sound isn t exactly to my taste. The synthetic elements work excellently in the extended opening instrumental Resurrection, but when combined with the groove metal style guitars of the majority of the album, they just sound sort of wrong. Felix Stass vocals are still strong, moving between a growl and singing style, and demonstrating an impressive range in songs like Wake Up, and the ever-reliable Katrin Goger is still the driving force behind the band, ...

Revolution - Crematory

Their comeback album after a brief disbanding, Crematory s Revolution once again sees the band moving forwards instead of back, even if the increased focus on electronic elements to supplement their industrial sound isn t exactly to my taste. The synthetic elements work excellently in the extended opening instrumental Resurrection, but when combined with the groove metal style guitars of the majority of the album, they just sound sort of wrong. Felix Stass vocals are still strong, moving between a growl and singing style, and demonstrating an impressive range in songs like Wake Up, and the ever-reliable Katrin Goger is still the driving force behind the band, ...

Illusions - Crematory

Crematory's third album is a welcome change of pace, as the German gothic metal band starts to develop a distinct sound of its own. This is a strong and myriad collection of songs, from the instrumental opening and closing tracks that exude more atmosphere and complexity than on previous releases, to the mix of doom and gothic metal elsewhere. Perhaps the most significant change is the dominance of clean vocals, which might take some getting used to for those unaccustomed to the thick German accent, as much of it tends towards spoken word with death metal growls to supplement. The songs vary between melodic guitar and keyboard dominance, and although I prefer the more ...

Illusions - Crematory

Crematory's third album is a welcome change of pace, as the German gothic metal band starts to develop a distinct sound of its own. This is a strong and myriad collection of songs, from the instrumental opening and closing tracks that exude more atmosphere and complexity than on previous releases, to the mix of doom and gothic metal elsewhere. Perhaps the most significant change is the dominance of clean vocals, which might take some getting used to for those unaccustomed to the thick German accent, as much of it tends towards spoken word with death metal growls to supplement. The songs vary between melodic guitar and keyboard dominance, and although I prefer the more ...